Reigning World Superbike Champion Jonathan Rea will look for a fast base setup early on in the campaign to retain his title, beginning in only a few hours when testing commences at Phillip Island.

The Isle of Man resident is still getting to grips with the new ZX-10R rolled out by Kawasaki for the 2016 season but tested well at Jerez and Aragon. He says there are still some points that need work but he is in good shape.

“There are some points with the bike that we need to address, but that’s the same with anything. It’s a super-strong package and we need to adapt it to my riding style a little. We saw at Jerez it is fast over a lap and we did some good times on used tyres, so we should be strong everywhere,” said Rea, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

“Like last year, we will figure out the best way to manage races and manage the championship, getting the best setup and geometry in order to not stress the tyres so much. Jerez was a good test for that because in November we had so much grip because of the amount of riders that were there.

“You could have gone fast riding a gate then because there was so much rubber down and I think it masked some of our challenges a little but the last test the track was fresh, it has been raining so we understood where we were in terms of both outright and distance pace.”

In 2016, Rea believes his bike will have more of an advantage early doors than last year, where he was able to conserve tyres and pull a second a lap with only a handful left to go - so the strategy is going to be different.

“I’m not going to get wrapped up in trying to make the bike extremely fast at each track we go to but when we get to Phillip Island, we will begin to chase a fast base setup - something we can just fine tune everywhere else.

“Right now, we are focusing on a setting that enables me to get the best out of my riding style but I think the new bike is leaning to being fast at the beginning of the race. The good thing is we can go back to where we were in terms of adapting it to my style with bits and pieces of setup. It’s a new bike and it’s a new challenge. We won’t know how it will stack up until we get to Europe. Then it will start…”

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