'One of the best tests in years' for Vivaldi.

The Vivaldi Racing Team completed their second successful pre-season testing session in Spain at the Circuito de Velocidad de Almeria at the weekend.

With Supersport rider Tommy Bridewell sidelined through injury, just the three Superbike riders made the trip to southern Spain for the two-day test.

Almeria is a firm favourite for British Superbike teams, as the track is the most reminiscent of those in the UK - bumpy and undulating throughout its 2.67 miles. Ben Wilson, Scott Smart, and Ollie Bridewell each completed over 90-laps of the circuit with the emphasis on fine-tuning suspension settings from Cartagena due to differences in circuit layout.

"The weekend went really well. I was the quickest rider on day one," said Bridewell. "As this was effectively only my second time on the bike I did 95 laps and I now understand the K6 much better. Dunlop gave us a few new tyres to try and I got quicker and quicker with each set. I am really happy with the bike, and my team of mechanics, Ben, Nick and Mark are totally awesome."

"We've done lots of work," added Smart. "All the suspension work that we had done at Cartagena didn't work at this track so we went back to basics and started again. This was really valuable for us as it is a good representation of a typical UK track."

Vivaldi technical director, Norris Farrow meanwhile was delighted with the two-day session: "This is one of the best tests I have done for years. Everything ran smoothly, all the riders are upbeat and the bikes are working really well. GSE were also here and we posted times within a second of them, which is really encouraging. Almeria is a good test for suspension as it is more demanding than Oulton Park. Ollie, Ben, and Scott to an extent, hadn't ridden the GSX-R K6 much before this but put together around 450 laps between them this weekend. Dunlop offered us a few new compounds to run at the end of the test. Some were pretty standard but we also had some pretty special rubber that dramatically brought down lap times. Almeria is a very aggressive track on tyres, more so than any UK track, but the tyre test provided evidence that we can run near the front. With Dunlop it is a matter of building up the points during the season and hoping that they can supply the tyres."

Tommy Bridewell elected to miss the test, spending the time recuperating from an operation to remove the last portion of the little finger on his left hand. The injury was sustained during a low-speed crash at Cartagena last week. Vivaldi will be keeping Tommy off his Suzuki until the first race but he is hoping to be fit enough for the opening round.

The team is now set for the opening round of the season at the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit on March 24-26, however opportunities still remain to sponsor the Vivalid 'People's Bike' anyone interested should contact the team.