Repsol Honda stand-in rider Jonathan Rea made a huge amount of progress at the Aragon MotoGP round, cutting his gap to the race winner by ten seconds compared to the result at Misano and says getting to grips with more sophisticated electronics is they key.
The must-be-shattered Irishman, who doesn't yet know if he will race at Motegi, was experimenting with different settings during Sunday's outing where he finished seventh but says that only two qualifying sessions in the dry is a long way from enough to make decision about how best to run the electronic strategies.
"During the race I exhausted all the options with electronics. I was playing a lot with traction control settings, also mapping changes and engine brake changes. It got to the point where I was just confused and just had to open the throttle and do my best to pick the line," said Rea, speaking after the race At Aragon.
"It was one of those things the race can teach you when the tyre drops down, the fuel load drops down. With more time I can understand but for a huge part of that race I was a little bit confused if I was doing the right or wrong thing with the buttons.
"The strategies work completely differently. In World Superbike I would flick the switch to save the tyre at the end of the race. Here it works the opposite way, you have to reduce the traction control and let the bike spin more rather than slowing it down too much.
"Around half-distance, I took a lot of traction control off the bike but then I was sliding around too much, so I put it back on and then I was going no faster so I took it off again and finished the race on quite a low setting. It was the opposite way from Superbike and I couldn't get it into my head.
"Electronically, in MotoGP, the possibilities are endless. With all the wet sessions, I haven't been able to fully understand what happens when the tyre really goes down. In the dry qualifying session, you don't have time to put in 20 laps. In Superbikes, the rider can make a much bigger difference.
"It was good to reduce the gap to the front, and good to take ten seconds out of the best riders in the world!"
