European Testing Completed As Rea Tops Time Sheets

Jonathan Rea and the Kawasaki Racing Team completed their latest block of winter testing in Europe at the Autodromo do Algarve near Portimao in Portugal last week.

At the end of the two-day test Jonathan had posted the fastest overall time of 1m 41.475, a few tenths of a second ahead of Leon Camier (Honda).

Track conditions became both more blustery and dustier on day two, to the extent that Rea and his technical crew opted to stop for a while in the middle of the day. They restarted near the end of the available time to complete the evaluation of the last few items on their overall testing plan.

With new technical rules introduced this season, limiting all Kawasaki riders’ engines to a maximum of 14,100rpm at the start of the year, much of the winter test programme has been concentrated in this area, with positive outcomes thus far

The next appointment for the entire KRT squad will be the team launch on February 8thin Barcelona. Then the final testing action will take place on 19th and 20th February, at Phillip Island.
 
Jonathan Rea, stated: “Today was actually bit of a difficult day with the conditions, very windy and gusty as well, so I really did not feel comfortable pushing on the limit. It did not make any sense to use a qualifying tyre or do long runs. We also made some practice starts and tested a new front and a new rear tyre from Pirelli. We expect those to come in some time in the future, but both times I used them I got interrupted by red flags. So it was a strange day in some ways. Generally the test has been good because yesterday we were able to have two hours while the wind was a bit reduced and do some productive testing. We have ticked all the boxes and the feeling with the bike has improved. I have woken up, because in Jerez last week I was still fast but I did not feel 100% on the bike. Here I was much better on the first laps.”