Reigning World Superbike Champion Jonathan Rea got his first taste of the 2016 Kawasaki Superbike this afternoon at Jerez but even though his initial outing was curtailed by wet weather in the morning at the Spanish track he says the bike is a big step forward.

Rea concentrated on just the 2016 bike after team-mate Tom Sykes had done some work on a hybrid 2015/2016 version at Aragon, and carried out some chassis work to find out where the optimum parameters are. The Castletown man put in 44 laps today and the team will also test some new parts tomorrow.

“Today was productive even though we missed the morning session. We worked solely on the 2016 bike and I had a great initial feeling with the bike. It really is quite different and although we have taken big step forward I have some issues to iron out before we can be really satisfied,” said Rea, speaking to bikesportnews.com from the track.

“We also tested some different chassis geometries to find out the parameters to work with the new bike. Tomorrow we have another list of new items to test but we try will try to evaluate everything clearly before continuing in Motorland in a few weeks.”