WorldSBK Gets Underway At Portimao

Jonathan Rea finished the opening day of WorldSBK round nine at Autodromo Internacional do Algarve with the fourth quickest lap-time overall after two Free Practice sessions around the 4.592km Portimao circuit.

In FP1 Rea was fourth quickest with a 1m 41.356 lap time. He was able to improve this by just over a tenth of a second in the warmer conditions of the afternoon session, to finish that session second fastest, but it was not enough to promote him on the overall standings for the day.

Jonathan was able to confirm set-up options for his Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10RR that he and the KRT squad had worked on at the recent private tests at Barcelona and Motorland Aragon. However, he acknowledged that there were still some issues to work on in tomorrow’s 30 minute FP3 session ahead of Superpole Qualifying and WorldSBK race 1.

The first 21 lap race of the weekend will take place at 14:00 (GMT +1)

Jonathan Rea, stated: “We found some positives during some private testing we did last week and we just confirmed some items here. We have found a base set-up but I am struggling a little bit with entry traction - it’s backing in on the rear - so we need to find more entry traction for the first race. I felt my rhythm was good; I just didn’t find that one out-and-out lap time. For day one, I feel we were there or thereabouts.”