Jonathan Rea Completes First Winter Test
2018 FIM Superbike World Champion Jonathan Rea completed his and Kawasaki Racing Team’s first winter test at Motorland Aragon today. Jonathan paired up with new team-mate Leon Haslam to get their hands on the 2019 Ninja ZX-10RR race machine for the first time.
The Kawasaki duo shared the track with the factory teams from Yamaha and Ducati and made good progress on the first day of testing. However, heavy rain and cold track temperatures put paid to any action on the second day and the team chose to pack up early with neither rider taking to the track.
Jonathan and his crew used the early laps on Wednesday morning to make a back-to-back comparison between the 2018 and 2019 race machines, before working through various set-up options with the new Ninja ZX-10RR. Whilst not pushing to the absolute limit, Rea set an impressive unofficial lap time of 1m 49.668s which proved to be the fastest of the test. The main purpose, however, was to understand the characteristics of the new machine and Jonathan came away from the test recognising the potential in the bike he will use next season to defend his world championship crown.
The next, and final test of the year, will take place at Jerez in Spain on the 26thand 27thof November.
Jonathan Rea, stated: “Day two of our test was cut short by wet weather so we were not able to refine the base set-up of our new 2019 Ninja ZX-10RR - but first impressions were positive after back-to-back tests with the 2018 machine. It is clear that the potential of the 2019 bike is much higher. To achieve that potential we need to delve into more set-up changes and that will require more time. Its need a bit more of a base setting because the new engine character has more power and more potential, especially under acceleration and on the brakes. That requires a little bit of a different riding style, so I need to understand that together with all my crew, in the next weeks. It was a simple back-to-back test here but in Jerez we can start to test more items with the chassis, electronics and some engine components.”