Tom Sykes isn’t getting ahead of himself despite a promising and surprising two days of FIM Motul Superbike World Championship (WorldSBK) testing at Phillip Island this week, which saw him conclude Tuesday’s outing in an impressive P2.

The all-new BMW Motorrad WorldSBK squad is still in its infant stages of returning to the world championship, along with developing the newly-introduced BMW S 1000 RR that’s currently being piloted by Sykes and teammate Markus Reiterberger.

The British rider has acknowledged there’s still work to be done, although his competitive times have offered up a sense of greater ambition ahead of the opening round this weekend.

“The BMW S 1000 RR is still really new in terms of track millage which makes all this more impressive,” Sykes commented. “The whole of the BMW Motorrad WorldSBK team are working quite flawlessly and have dealt with all of the obstacles that have come our way so far.

“I’m here to be competitive and I’m sure everyone in the BMW Motorrad WorldSBK team is feeling the same. There is no denying how fresh this project is but ultimately we want to be competitive and this test has shown glimpses that we can be. I won’t get ahead of myself, I know what I need so we will try our best come race weekend and see where we end up.”

The test was topped by WorldSBK newcomer Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati), who was 0.236s faster than Sykes at the seaside Australian venue.