WSBK, Barcelona Tests J2: repeat this afternoon for Redding and Baz!

After one relatively balanced first day, Jonathan Rea took advantage of a fast track this morning (but causing a lot of falls) to set the record straight by achieving a time of 1'40.450 that only Scott Redding could approach (1'40.606).

After the lunch break, the Honda seem to take the bull by the horns after the absence of running and this morning's technical tele-meetings with Japan, and are the first to return to the track, accompanied by Loris Baz. No need to lie, there is still a lot of work to be done on the motorcycles and Alvaro Bautista made no secret of it yesterday: front axle feeling, rear grip, electrical problems, etc. However, hopefully nothing really prohibitive and the Fireblades should receive a lot of new parts during an upcoming private test in Aragón.

Alvaro Bautista recorded a 1'43.261 after half an hour, which became the provisional reference for the afternoon before being surpassed by a good tenth by alex lowes and Tom Sykes on his BMW.

But all this is quickly forgotten when, around 15:30 p.m., Scott Redding took to the track again and immediately recorded a 1'41.737, relegating all the others to more than a second!

Jonathan Rhea comes to tease the Briton's time a little before 16:00 p.m. but remains 3 tenths slower.

In the last hour, The Irishman reduced this gap to 0,254 seconds while Scott Redding is immobilized on the track, for the third time in these tests. However, we will have to wait until the last minutes to witness an offensive of Toprak Razgatlioglu, Loris Baz, Chaz Davies et alex lowes, all these riders taking advantage of the coolest track possible to get between the Ducati of Scott Redding and the Kawasaki of Jonathan Rhea.

In the end, and as expected, this afternoon did not allow us to improve on the very good times of this morning, which confirms that, without any possible doubt, Jonathan Rea will once again be the man to beat this season, and that Scott Redding will undoubtedly be its most serious rival... if indeed the Ducati proves more reliable in racing than during these tests.

Loris Baz confirmed his excellent performance in the afternoon, even managing to improve his time by 3 thousandths compared to this morning.

Pilot debriefs to come…

Combined results of the 2 days:

1	1	Jonathan Rhea	Kawasaki	1'41.910	1'40.450
2	45	Scott Redding	Ducati	1'41.727	1'40.606
3	66	Tom Sykes	BMW	1'42.455	1'40.956
4	22	alex lowes	Kawasaki	1'42.318	1'41.137
5	54	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Yamaha	1'42.771	1'41.218
6	50	Eugene Laverty	BMW	1'42.832	1'41.494
7	60	Michael van der Mark	Yamaha	1'42.975	1'41.679
8	76	Loris Baz	Yamaha	1'41.980	1'41.881
9	7	Chaz Davies	Ducati	1'42.641	1'41.903
10	36	Leander Market	Ducati	1'42.997	1'42.024
11	31	Garrett gerloff	Yamaha	1'43.119	1'42.121
12	91	Leon Haslam	Honda	1'42.996	1'42.126
13	11	Sandra Cortese	Kawasaki	1'42.573	1'42.187
14	19	Alvaro Bautista	Honda	1'42.320	1'43.261
15	64	Federico Caricasulo	Yamaha	1'43.535	1'42.333
16	77	Maximilian Scheib	Kawasaki	1'43.568	1'42.436
17	20	Sylvain Barrier	Ducati	1'44.430	1'44.323