Czech Action Starts For Rea

Round Eight of the FIM Superbike World Championship got underway at the Autodrom Most circuit in the Czech Republic today, Friday 28 July, with a wet Free Practice One. The second Free Practice session in the afternoon was dry and in the final Friday rankings Jonathan Rea finished tenth.

With the track conditions and temperature varying so much between the two session Jonathan used the time to evaluate the set up of his Ninja ZX-10RR for tomorrow’s WorldSBK race one. He was fastest at one point in FP2 but without pushing for a quick time over one lap he finished the day in tenth place with some more set up options to explore in tomorrow’s 30 minute FP3 session.

Jonathan Rea, stated: “I don’t think our position reflects our true pace. I felt OK on the bike and evaluated both rear tyre options. I wasn’t sure about the second one, so I came back and put the old tyre in. My rhythm was OK, just not fast enough over one lap to put me at the front of the timesheets. In the wet this morning I was quite good and we just need to get the bike to turn better. That is the focus for tomorrow because I feel I am using too much lean angle. At this circuit you need the bike to naturally turn. Our focus for Saturday is to try and do a good Superpole lap so that we can aim for the front row starting positions. I would prefer to race in the dry but we need to do a little bit more set-up work to fight for the podium in those conditions. I haven’t done a time attack yet, but for sure when it comes to doing one lap in Superpole, I can be OK and I hope to make it to the front row.”