Jonathan Rea feels there is still work to be done when he heads out to Australia for the opening round of the 2024 WorldSBK Championship after a disrupted end to his European pre-season testing programme in Portimao.

The Ulsterman has spent four days at Jerez and Portimao working to get comfortable on the Pata PROMETEON Yamaha R1 following his switch from Kawasaki over the winter, but has proven competitive throughout.

However, after setting the third fastest time on day one at the Portuguese circuit, Rea had to switch machines on day two after crashing his R1 at Turn 1.

Ending the test seventh fastest quickest time overall after being bumped down by late improvements, Rea reveals he wasn’t able to get entirely through his work programme, leaving him on a slight back foot heading to Phillip Island.

“The guys need to check exactly what happened but I just came to a halt at Turn 1; we parked that bike for the day, so lost a little bit of time with what happened and then obviously, we only had one bike for the rest of the test. 

“We focused on our workload again, confirming the bike and I’m not completely satisfied with the feeling out there. I did a longer run to understand the tyre drop but I got faster and faster during that, so there’s some positives.

“I think our outright speed, we need to improve a little bit. I wasn’t completely comfortable so we’re still working to find that optimum setup for that style; it’s our first time here at Portimao together and the bike was behaving a little bit differently to what I was used to do.

“There’s work to do for everybody but I am happy, confident and relieved that testing has finished.”