Crafar tests R1 in Spain

Simon Crafar has been riding his Virgin Yamaha R1 for the first time in a test in Almeria, Spain, alongside team mate Steve Plater.

The team started testing on Wednesday and will finish on Friday.

Plater rode a prototype R1 at the circuit last month, but Wednesday marked the debut of the Virgin team’s completed BSB specification bike.

Crafar completed 60 laps and said: ” The bike felt just like a street bike when I jumped on it this morning but the boys have let me do what I wanted to do, they’ve thrown in a few ideas of their own and we’ve made some good progress.

” We’ve made a lot of big changes to the bike, like changing the springs, and that has meant that we’ve lost quite a bit of track time. But what we’ve done has worked well and if I can have another day like this tomorrow I’ll be well happy. ”

Plater has already eclipsed his best time from last month’s test, lapping in the low 1:40 bracket. He said: ” The bike feels much better than the last time, but the problem with going faster is that a lot of other problems crop up. We’ll sit down tonight to work out a plan of attack for tomorrow.

” I spent most of the day on old tyres and that’s given me a better feel for the bike. The bike is already much faster than the R7, not in terms of top speed but in the way it accelerates out the bends. ”

Team manager Rob McElnea said he was looking for more progress on Thursday and Friday.

He said: ” We’ve come a long way even from this morning and we are now pretty close to finding some good base settings. We’re already a second a lap faster than we were last month and I believe that we need to find another three-quarters of a second to match the pace that John Reynolds was doing here. ”

Crafar and Plater have been joined at the test by Darren Barton and Paul Jones, who are riding the Virgin team’s 2001 R7s in BSB this season.