By Following on from competitive action at Monteblanco, International roads giants a plenty went onto sample the second British Superbike Championship testing event of 2020 at one of Spain’s most illustrious circuits, Jerez.
After Saturday evening’s news of his deal with Paul Bird Motorsport, 19 times TT winner Michael Dunlop took centre stage on Sunday piloting for the first time V4 R Panigale Ducati machinery.
Beginning the two day test on a production V4 R Panigale mount, he went onto complete 33 laps on the Superbike version of the British Championship winning model, ending with a best lap time of 1 minute 47.962 seconds.
Photo by Tommy Vennard
Fellow multi TT winners Peter Hickman and Dean Harrison both showed solid, consistent, accomplished pace banking respectively 70 and 49 laps.
It wasn’t all plain sailing though for world’s fastest road racer Hickman who on Monday had a pretty big high side incident on the Smiths BMW from which he emerged ok.
Rich Energy OMG Racing’s James Hillier continued to chip away with his pace, completing almost 90 laps of the Jerez circuit which included 26 on S1000RR BMW machinery in Superbike trim.
Like Hillier, 16 times TT winner Ian Hutchinson quietly went under the radar, racking up the miles (55 laps completed), steadily building to hitting the sweet spot with the Raceways Yamaha, IC Racing supported Boyce Precision Engineering Yamaha by Russell Racing steed.
Words by Stevie Rial
