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For Dominique Aegerter, the first tests after his long winter break did not go as hoped. Even on the last two days in Portimao, he did not find full confidence in his Yamaha Superbike yet.

Changeable weather and anything but ideal track conditions did not play into the hands of 34-year-old Dominique Aegerter at the second test of the new year. After an involuntary free Thursday in Jerez the previous week due to rain, Aegerter and his crew from the Italian GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team got slowed down on Tuesday despite good conditions with a lot of water flooding the track at two places.

The situation changed again on Wednesday with heavy rain showers in places. However, the racer from the canton of Bern was not deterred by this and reeled off a basic program that was possible thanks to the rainy weather. In view of the circumstances, lap times were of secondary importance. Rather, the focus in Portugal was on getting back up to speed after Aegerter had not been on his race bike for almost three months until the Jerez test.

#77 Dominique AEGERTER (GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team, Yamaha YZF R1)

«Even during this test, I still lacked a little confidence in everything I was riding. I had a small crash on the first day. It was nothing serious, everything is fine. But unfortunately, it messed up our agenda a bit as we could only work properly for half a day. In those four hours we tried out a few things, which had a positive effect on the feeling with the bike. But we still need more kilometres, especially in good track conditions, because it was very windy here on both days and yesterday there were also some wet patches on the track all day. Of course, that had an effect on the riding.»

«We had hoped for better weather today. But it rained almost the whole day. Nevertheless, we were able to do some valuable laps and try out some things that are not possible in the dry. It was important and good to have done that. But now I'm looking forward to having the plate removed from my right shoulder in a few days. Hopefully I'll be completely pain-free afterwards. And then it's off to Phillip Island in Australia in two weeks' time, where we have two more days of testing. I'm sure I'll be fully fit there and able to give my best performance.»