Nicky Hayden says his Red Bull Honda squad still has plenty of improvements to make with the new Fireblade before targeting the sharp end of the World Superbike grid.

After the two winter tests at Jerez and Portimao with the all-new Fireblade CBR1000RR SP2, Hayden stressed a lengthy development path ahead for Red Bull Honda and with a rain-interrupted day one at the Phillip Island test plus technical issues the American rider was unable to shift through his full testing programme.

The former MotoGP world champion, who ended the final test 14th overall and 1.5 seconds off of pacesetter Jonathan Rea, says inconsistent feeling from the new Honda also hampered his own progress with the main issues still surrounding electronics and power delivery.

"Luckily today we had much better weather than yesterday, but we picked up more or less where we left off at Portimao," Hayden said. "Unfortunately, we were not able to close the gap to the front like we wished we had and there is still some work to do with the electronics and the driveability.

"We also experienced some inconsistency from lap to lap, which didn't help me in giving a proper feedback to the team. We will look through the data in order to try and find something in time for Friday. We need to focus on the positives and be realistic on what there is to improve the most, then we'll see what happens."