Australia’s World Supersport hope Broc Parkes is confident he can contend for victory at this weekend’s opening round of the 2011 title chase after setting the second quickest time during testing at Phillip Island on Monday and Tuesday.

The Newcastle rider, who enters his 10th season on the world stage this year, was just 0.014 off the pace-setting time of Frenchman Fabien Foret with a best lap of 1:33.918 aboard his Motocard.com Kawasaki ZX-6R.

“I am happy to have had another couple of days to test because in Almeria it was a bit cold, and it rained in Portugal,” the Aussie explained. “So here we did a lot of kilometres on used tyres today to get to a good race set-up.

“We found some positive directions and the bike felt really good, so we stuck in a new tyre and went for a fast lap. I am not sure if the grip this afternoon was as high as this morning but maybe at the end, when I did my lap, it was okay.

“I am ready for the weekend and we are just going to analyse some data now. We should start the race weekend with basic set-up that we finished the tests with.

“We worked well with the new ‘big’ tyres. We did about 20 laps on one set and they were pretty consistent.

“I think even last year the bike was as good as anything, and this year it is a little better again.”

Parkes joined the team toward the end of last season, now entering his first of a two-year deal with Kawasaki in WSS.