Shane Byrne will be aiming to continue his improvement on his Ducati 1098R when the World Superbike Championship heads for Valencia, Spain.

A sixth placed finish, last time out in Qatar, is the best Byrne has achieved so far having started the season with two non finishes in the opening round at Phillip Island, Austarlia

Round three sees the series head to Europe for the first time this season and to a track where Team Sterilgarda, who Byrne is racing for this season, enjoyed their maiden GP win in 2007.

Byrne will be looking for extra improvements this weekend as he hopes to reel in fellow Brits Leon Haslam, Tom Sykes and Jonathan Rea who are all riding high in the championship.

Sittingbourne rider Byrne is currently sitting 16th with 14 points with a sixth in race one in Qatar and 12th in race two during the last round.

Team manager Marco Borciani said: “Our objective at Valencia is to repeat the great performance of race one in Qatar - being in the leading pack and fight till the end.

“Shane knows the track well and will start on equal terms with the other riders during practice, where we have to capture a good starting position in the first rows.

“Valencia is a track where it’s very hard to overtake and in order to score a great result, we’ll have to get in the leading pack from lap one.”