Pata Honda duo Jonathan Rea and Leon Haslam will take in a test at Jerez early next week before packing up and flying down to the first World Superbike round at Phillip Island.

The pair did some good development work at Portimao and made good use of the team's test rider before putting in some quick lap with Rea saying he is in much better shape than at this time last season.

"My team won’t mind me saying but our bike was terrible at the start of last year in terms of electronics. When I went to Phillip Island, we had so many problems, silly problems that should have been sorted out the winter before. Not the team’s fault, there were a lot of things arriving late so we are definitely in much better shape to start the year this year," said the Irishman, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

"In the end I had a good feeling with the bike, a better feeling than I’ve probably ever had especially from traction point of view. I have a tractable feeling on the throttle. We did good work there so I was quite happy with the way it all turned out, but we still need to improve further to enable us to challenge near the front."

Rea says the team have gone their own way in terms of setup and electronic strategies for the 2014 season after wheeling in former BMW data man Max Neri.

"We have taken everything a bit more in house this year because last year, I don’t know if it was a lack of communication or lack of understanding but we expected much more help than what we had with the electronics. The Honda software that we basically tried to reciprocate in the Cosworth ECU wouldn’t work, we had an HRC Track Engineer for the first couple of tests and then that finished.

"I felt sorry for my team because they were doing the best they could do with what we had. This year with a lot more control and Honda Europe really stepping up in terms of continued investment."