Rea Fifth And Fastest In The Wet

Jonathan Rea finished fifth fastest after one dry and one wet free practice session during the opening day of track action for round six of the 2020 WorldSBK Championship at the Montmelo circuit in Catalunya.

The prospect of rain in the afternoon was clear before the first session of practice got underway at this 4.627km long circuit. For a time Rea and his crew had to work with his braking system before settling in to find a good machine balance and set-up in FP1, ending up fifth fastest and reaching a good level in their search for a strong dry weather set-up.

In the afternoon the expected wet weather conditions arrived and although the track started to dry out eventually the lap times never got close to those set in FP1 this morning. Rea was fastest of all 22 riders on the slippery track surface. 

Free practice three takes place on Saturday morning, to be followed by Tissot-Superpole qualifying and the first 20 lap race of the weekend. On Sunday a 10-lap Tissot-Superpole ‘sprint’ and a full distance race two will end what is an eagerly anticipated first ever WorldSBK race weekend at KRT’s home round.

Jonathan Rea, stated: “In the end I felt quite good with the bike and found a good rhythm. This morning I had some issues in braking, when the lever was coming back too far, so the first half of the session was dealing with that. In the afternoon it was wet so we were just step-by-step finding the conditions. We have never ridden here in the wet so we were just looking out for those slippery areas. I almost got caught out in the afternoon when Maximilian Scheib fell just in front of me - and first of all I want to say that I hope he is OK. I was catching him and he lost the rear on the exit of turn five. I was right there and I got in between the bike and him, so I was so lucky. After day one I feel like we are quite prepared and I have experience in wet and dry conditions now. We know what we are dealing with.”