Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea set the fastest time in both today’s opening World Superbike free practice sessions at Aragon, and the Isle of Man resident is ‘satisfied’ with his race pace so far – but concluded there is still more to work to go even quicker, including working on engine braking.
But he was able to go out-pace fellow Brits, Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes and Ducati’s Chaz Davies this afternoon, and was able to go three tenths of a second quicker than the current champion after clocking a 1’58.180.
“I’m quite satisfied with today - it’s been a really good start to the weekend for us. We’ve got quite a good base already, but I still need to work on optimising our engine braking quite a lot,” said Rea.
“The last time we were here it was quite good, but maybe a change in conditions has thrown some other issues into the mix. We can work a bit more on chassis settings tonight but, for day one, I’m quite happy with my out-and-out pace.
“With the change in race day schedule, we need to do a long run tomorrow morning to work with a cooler race-one temperature in mind. We’ve got two rear options to check and see if our preferred tyre will work in cooler conditions around 10.30. So, after a longer run in the morning, I’ll get ready for Superpole.”
