Brighter conditions greeted the RICH Energy OMG Racing duo for the second and final day of the first official Bennetts British Superbike test at Silverstone. Overnight changes were made to both BMW M1000RR machines and while James Ellison used the opening session to continue his data and set up work aboard Brad Ray's machine it was refining an already strong package for Kyle Ryde.

The Nottinghamshire native opened his day two account with the fastest time of the session to continue his form of Wednesday and reinforce his credentials around the former airfield circuit. With the top six riders breaking in to the 53-second bracket and a host of riders knocking on the door, session five saw the top fifteen riders covered by less than a second. It may only be the first days of testing but try telling that to the massed ranks of the BSB field!


As well as building his relationship with the bike the test gave Ryde and his Crew Chief, Ray Stringer, opportunity to gel and understand what they both need and a plan to keep moving forward. Second fastest on the timesheets for the second session of the day showed the relationship is working well and despite a drop in lap-time after making adjustments to the BMW that didn't have the desired effect, it was reset and go again for the final session of the test.

As with Free Practice on a normal race weekend, it was a matter of making progressive changes to improve the feel of the bike and help Kyle understand its behaviour on only his second day riding his new machine. After early laps working on a handful of final aspects, Ryde was able to push for the three laps of the day, topping the timesheets with his very last effort of the day, posting a lap just a tenth of a second off his best lap at the same circuit back in September.

After an intense two days on track, Ryde was buoyed by his performance and said afterwards,

"I'm really pleased with the two days here on the new RICH Energy BMW M1000RR. We've worked hard to get a good feeling with the front of the bike and that's made me really happy with our work."

"We've had a few niggles today that we didn't really get to the bottom of but we were still strong enough to post a decent lap time so when we return here later in the year we know exactly what to work on.

Three days at Snetterton will be really good to continue where we left off here and I'm already looking forward to getting more miles on the bike and building the confidence even more."