“It’s been a good and productive two days’ worth of testing,” Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea said this evening after the final World Superbike test wrapped up today at Phillip Island.
“We have been able to reconfirm some settings, and also some settings that I preferred at the Jerez test that were not working here.”
Today saw Rea complete a handful of 20-lap race runs, which is just two shy of the race distance come this Sunday. After a busy day at the office, Rea is happy enough to walk away knowing he and the team have gathered some good information to make his Kawasaki ZX-10R even better for the fight that lies ahead.
“We put a new tyre on at the end of the session and it was the first time that the fresh tyre was able to provide us a fast lap time.”
Rea had been struggling to go fast with a fresh tyre and after ten laps he was struggling to find confidence as the tyres started moving about.
“I was a little bit worried about that,” explained Rea. “Overall I’m happy with the two days; I’m just excited to start the season. Honestly I want to start now. There is a lot of anticipation and excitement building up for the new season, so I’m looking forward to Friday, but even more for Sunday.”
Rea topped the time sheets today in the second session with a 1’30.859, but it was Alex Lowes’ 1’30.859 in session one that was the fastest for the whole test.
An interesting fact for Rea is in his 12 Superbike races at the Island, he has managed to finish at least once in the positions between fourth and ninth and never retired, always scoring points. Rea’s best positions at Phillip Island is fourth position that he has recorded in 2010 in race one, and race two in 2011 and 2012.
