Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea made serious changes to his ZX-10R in free practice four which gave hm the confidence to push that he lacked yesterday and he will start both tomorrow’s Jerez World Superbike races from the front row.
Rea has had to change setup as the hard compound Pirelli front he favours isn’t available this weekend, so a change to the wheelbase and steering head angle in free practice four tranformed the bike and Rea hopes his rear tyre drop will not be as marked as it was yesterday in race simulations.
“We changed the wheelbase of the bike and the head angle, which is giving me more stability when the tyre drops. Yesterday I was still competitive with the other riders but I was struggling with more drop than I usually have because I couldn’t use the front to turn,” said Rea, speaking to bikesportnews.com at the track.
“In free practice four we made the change and it transformed the bike, the laptimes came much easier and we have good pace now. I have been on the third row in some races and I really didn’t expect this result. At th start of Superpole with the race tyre I was really surprised with the lap, it was almost perfect.
“On the qualifying tyre lap, I got a little bit too excited in turn two, ran in too fast and lost some time but I am really happy with the time and the front row as it gives us a clean start for me to get into my rhythm.
“The plan for tomorrow is to wait, keep my rhythm and then in the last laps we should have enough tyre to really attack. I want to win.”
