WSBK, Barcelona Tests J2, Jonathan Rea (1/Kawasaki): confidence has returned…

Even though he was robbed of the best time by Scott Redding each afternoon, Jonathan Rea remains positive at the end of these two days of Superbike testing on the Catalunya-Barcelona circuit.

On the one hand because he remains the fastest in the combined classification of this Catalan session thanks to a time of 1'40.450 achieved on Thursday morning on qualifying tires, but above all because real in-depth work has been carried out on the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10RR as a continuation of the private tests held in June in Misano.

Using two differently tuned motorcycles alternately, the Irishman was able to select new parts as well as the settings and tires that suit him best, whether in the relative cool of the morning or in the afternoon sun. summer noon in Spain…

Jonathan Rhea : “I took the soft tire intended for the race then a qualifying tire (to achieve my best time). But that's exactly what we set out to do: find out how fast we could be here. It was really good to push because the morning was like super pole, with almost everyone using a qualifying tire. Everyone knows it works better in cooler conditions. After that, we continued the comparison work and confirmed new parts that make the motorcycle more stable. We worked with two bikes and compared them over and over, but it didn't do much. »
“To be honest, I didn't really have a good feeling with one of the settings, then we tried a different front tire, and that brought pros and cons. The stiffer construction was a little better when braking but the cornering feeling was not as good as with the softer tire. We focused on the degradation of these tires over distance and we played a little with the balance to better facilitate corner entry with the rear wheel. In the end, we were pretty successful. The last sector with the two fast corners is usually not very good for the Kawasaki, but now I feel like we are making progress. We can be optimistic because we have made progress. »

“In the afternoon we didn't use soft tires and we packed up a little early after confirming a few things in the heat. With the temperatures high, I did some race simulations with both bikes and tried a few things that Kawasaki wanted. We continued to work on the rear tire to understand how performance degrades and how we can manage that. Overall we can be satisfied because it really was a good test. We really improved the bike, especially in the heat, so Jerez could be an advantage for us. The feeling suits me. My confidence is back to where it should be and I'm now looking forward to Jerez. »

The next race will take place in Jerez on August 2. After his fall during the first race in Australia, Jonathan Rea will enter it 19 points behind his teammate Alex Lowes, and in fourth position behind also Scott Redding and Toprak Razgatlioglu.

Combined results of the 2 days:

1	1	Jonathan Rea	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