Rea Fastest On Eve Of New Season

A two day official pre-season test at Motorland Aragon saw Jonathan Rea make the final on-track preparations for the opening round of the 2022 FIM Superbike World Championship, with Rea setting the overall leading pace in the final session.

On the first day the dry but very cold morning conditions kept most of the riders in the pit garages until the track temperatures improved all around the 5.077km long Motorland Aragon circuit. Ninja ZX-10RR rider Rea then joined the full WorldSBK line-up on track, riding in what were increasingly good conditions.

Day two was also cool in the morning but consistently dry weather allowed him to work through his final test plans and make meaningful preparations for the first points scoring races of the 2022 season.

Rea set his best single lap time of 1’48.714 on the final minutes of the tests and was the only rider to get into the 1’48 bracket. He was 0.354 seconds faster than the next rider, Toprak Razgatlioglu (Yamaha).

With the pre-season action now complete the 2022 WorldSBK campaign will begin in earnest at Motorland Aragon, between 8-10 April. Once again there will be three races on the weekend schedule, with the first on Saturday 9 April.

Jonathan Rea, stated: “Step-by-step we have built the package at this test. The afternoon sessions were much better than the first morning. We got meaningful work done and we confirmed our bike set-up. On the last runs I was really able to clarify the package we will start the race weekend with. We also ticked a lot of boxes with tyres. We used the SCQ qualifying tyre, which is new for us. We had to understand it before we use it in Superpole qualifying on Saturday. Today I enjoyed riding the bike; I had a lot of fun and got a lot of feedback. When that happens we are able to go quite fast. I am as ready as I will ever be to start racing. You can always do more, but you have to start somewhere and if we were to go racing tomorrow I am happy enough to start. We will have the usual ‘class of 2022’ photos on Thursday and then go racing on Friday.”