Garrett Gerloff: I wish I could say I learnt something at WorldSBK tests, but no

Garrett Gerloff says WorldSBK endured “the worst luck” with bad weather hitting both European preseason tests in January.

Aside from a few hours of patchy conditions on day two in Jerez and day one in Portimao, the two January tests for World Superbike this year were almost complete washouts.

The conditions left little time for testing new parts and left many riders trying to figure out ergonomics and wet weather electronics on their new motorcycles, while others simply didn’t ride, as was the case for Bimota’s two race riders and all of the Yamaha riders in Portugal.

Garrett Gerloff did ride in Portugal, but only for a limited amount of laps and only on day one – laps that left him with nothing learnt.

“I feel bad for my team and all the teams here, and also in Jerez, because we’ve just had the worst luck with weather,” said Gerloff, speaking to WorldSBK.com after the first day of the Portimao test; the American didn’t ride on day two.

“Today [Thursday] started out with hurricane-force winds in the morning and a tonne of rain. We finally got a little bit of dry track, but it was really half-wet, half-dry with a tonne of rivers across the track. 

“I mean, I wish I could say that I’ve learnt something, but honestly no. 

“I did 18 laps today, 20 laps in Jerez, both in mixed conditions and just trying to survive. I feel like a lot of people are going to Australia completely blind.”

The limited running Gerloff did get gave him some idea of the positive changes caused by the new ZX-10RR’s fairing, but he was not able to ride enough to validate his initial impression.

“I was able to tell, I think, a little bit with the different aero packages,” he said.

“I feel like with the wings on the new bodywork, I could feel – like over the rise on the front straight, and also in the back part of the track where the wind was a bit stronger – that the front was a bit more planted. 

“But I’m still way off the pace of a normal race time, so I hope that [the feeling] keeps getting exaggerated more and more the faster I go, but at the minute I’m just trying not to crash on the water.”