Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea may have only been tenth fastest in the overall World Superbike free practice timesheets at Jerez today, but he feels that his team have made improvements to his bike that have benefitted, rather than hindered the Northern Irishman.
The Pata crew tried out a new weight distribution on the CBR, and also tested some new brake components. In addition Rea's team have been working hard on a new engine specification, which the Isle of Man resident is still getting used to.
“Honestly, if you can look past the actual result, today’s been very productive for us. We started the day with a little problem but session two was good and we were able to try a new weight distribution on the CBR,” said Rea.
“There were some positives and negatives and we still need to maximise the set-up for that. Nissin have brought some new brake components for me to test and I’m finding a really positive feeling with that. Also my team worked hard on a new engine specification during the break and I’m still getting used to that as it has a quite different power character.
“Today we worked solely to get a good feeling and we took a little weight off the front in the middle of this afternoon’s session. I didn’t have the best feeling with that but we’ll look at the data tonight. We got a lot of work done today and I’m quite satisfied.”
