Sykes has continued the good form he showe💛d at Brands Hatch a fortnight ago with top five placings 💎in both free practice sessions so far.

The Yorkshireman managed to cut eight tenths of a second from his firs🦩t session time to finish session tw🍒o just over a second away from quickest man Cal Crutchlow.

"We are just refining the set-up of the bike now," he said. "There are a couple of are♔as of the track I need to concentrate on to get more s🍌peed.

"I am happy with my speed in the first sector, but the second sector is where I am losing time, but we shoul🏅d b꧋e able to sort that."

Team-mate Watanabe is right in at the deep end and despite dropping h💛is🔜 lap time after both sessions by one and half seconds was just inside the top 20.

"I am still le♌arning, circuit is very fast but layout is eas🌠y," explained the Japanese rider.

"My lap time improve but not my result, there are many different lines hꦦere, I need to find A๊tsushi line!"

Team boss Jack Valentine was happy with the reuslts of both riders, he said: "We've been working on t༒yre duratiꦍon and have further improvements to make to help with that.

"I am 🥃pleased that both riders have shown improvement, lap times are good and we are right up thཧere in the speed trap figures so it looks promising for tomorrow."