SBK test day 1

Live blog for WorldSBK’s first major test in Barcelona

The knives are sharpened and with the exception of Lucas Mahias (Kawasaki) and Eugene Laverty (BMW) practically all drivers are there. At the WorldSSP runner-up, the new Kawasaki was not finished in time and the Puccetti team is expecting its test to continue in one to two weeks. As we have found out, it is possible that they will receive additional parts in the next few weeks until the start of the season in Aragon at the end of May. The works team apparently still has a few components up their sleeves, with which one can possibly achieve further optimizations on the new ZX-10RR in Barcelona.

Positive news and scary news
It is gratifying that MIE Honda is back and with Leandro “Tati” Mercado, who won the eighth World Cup in 2015, has another chance. Instead of the straggler Takumi Takahashi, Midori Moriwaki’s team and the Argentinean should be in a much better position than last year. Mercado was very unlucky in 2020 when he was shot down by Tom Sykes, who was spinning back onto the track, on the first weekend in Aragon, injuring himself and being out for the next 2 laps. From Wednesday he will be there again and will be a guest for 2 days in Box 24 between the Ten Kate WSSP Racing Team and HRC Honda. Much less positive and very worrying for Eugene Laverty fans is the fact that box 14 reserved for him will remain empty. On March 29th we reported that the season of the Northern Irish is in acute danger, see on this page under “Laverty-out in WSBK?”. The fact that the Kawasaki Puccetti team with Lucas Mahias is missing and that Jonas Folger and Can Öncü are also not there is also disappointing for many fans.

The first of 2 eight-hour WorldSBK sessions

After many drivers warmed themselves up with racing tires in the first two and a half hours, the times are currently not particularly meaningful. There were only a few attacks on the softer Pirelli tires, one of which was ridden by Scott Redding. The Englishman set the best time to date with 1’41.198, which is around three seconds below the best times in the WorldSSP the day before. However, comparisons with the best values ​​from the Superpole last year are pointless. The conversion of the supermarket parking lot curve 10, as Valentino Rossi often called this corner, made the Circuito de Cataluña a lot smoother. The correction carried out last winter by means of conversion measures should take around half a second. So far, the 6-time record world champion Johnny Rea has not yet attacked the fastest time. It is therefore to be expected that the current record of the Ducati driver will still be clearly undercut. In any case, at least a mean time of 1’40 can currently be assumed. In the second sector, HRC Honda driver Leon Haslam was the fastest man, while in the remaining 3 his compatriot Scotty from the Aruba.it Ducati factory team was the fastest.

Folger the first victim – no live images from Barcelona
The first driver who did not come back from start to finish was BMW driver Jonas Folger, the man from pit number 15. He did not finish the first sector and we are curious to see if and when he will be able to get back on the track. While WorldSBK is promoting the video pass on their website, don’t let that confuse you. Even because “Pre-Season” is listed, no moving images are currently offered. However, if you want to experience everything live, you will hardly be able to avoid such a subscription and you can be happy if you have a good internet connection. Redding’s time still holds up after 3 hours when there are still 5 hours of test time left. At halftime we will publish a first interim result.

Viñales after Folger the next – Gerloff with the best fourth sector
After Folger, Isaac Viñales is the next red on the monitor after Maverick’s cousin crashed on his Kawasaki in the second sector. With GRT Yamaha ace Garrett Gerloff, after almost three and a half hours, we have a man on P2 on the provisional time sheet, on which many observers think big. With the fastest 4th section, he drove the second best lap time to date and thus remained 29 thousandths below the time of fellow brand colleague Toprak. Nothing significant has changed by half time. Andrea Locatelli was the only one who improved his time by around a tenth in the last half hour before. The hunt for the best times is only expected in the evening. Below is the intermediate result.

Day 1 – after 4 of 8 hours:
1. Scott Redding (Ducati), 1’41.198
2. Garrett Gerloff (Yamaha), +0.471
3. Toprak Razgatlioglu (Yamaha), +0.500
4. Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Ducaati), +0.550
5. Leon Haslam (Honda), +0.632
6. Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki), +0.668
7. Chaz Davies (Ducati), +0.768
8. Alvaro Bautista (Honda), +0.860
9. Tom Sykes (BMW), +0.895
10. Alex Lowes (Kawasaki), +0.922
11. Michael van der Mark (Yamaha),  +1.061
12. Jonas Folger (BMW), +1.171
13. Andrea Locatelli (Yamaha), +1.347
14. Tito Rabat (Ducati), +1.621
15. Axel Bassani (Ducati), +1.715
16. Isaac Viñales (Kawasaki), +2.335
17. Kohta Nozane (Yamaha), +2.627
18: Christophe Ponsson (Yamaha), +3.747
19. Leandro Mercado (Honda), +4.848
20. Samuele Cavalieri (Kawasaki), +6.060
Missing Riders:
No. 44 Lucas Mahias (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing)
No. 50 Eugene Laverty (RC Squadra Corse BMW)
No. 84 Loris Cresson (Pedercini Kawasaki Racing)

Intermediate result after 6 of 8 hours – Redding without time improvement ahead of Gerloff and Rea
It took hours until Jonas Folger was back on the track and with Jonathan Rea the first Kawasaki drove into the top three. Behind Redding, who had not improved his previous best time, and Gerloff, the Northern Irishman is now on P3 of the less informative time measurement. Without knowing who is on the track with which tires and how much tank capacity, no real comparison can be made. It can be assumed that, as usual, shortly before the end of the first day of testing, many drivers will be on the hunt for time with softer tires. Thus, a first really relevant inventory will only be possible after 6 p.m.

Top 15 of Day 1 – after 6 of 8 hours:
1. Scott Redding (Ducati), 1’41.198
2. Garrett Gerloff (Yamaha), +0.4091
3. Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki), +0.460
4. Toprak Razgatlioglu (Yamaha), +0.500
5. Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Ducaati), +0.550
6. Leon Haslam (Honda), +0.632
7. Alvaro Bautista (Honda), +0.752
8. Chaz Davies (Ducati), +0.768
9. Tom Sykes (BMW), +0.895
10. Alex Lowes (Kawasaki), +0.922
11. Michael van der Mark (Yamaha),  +1.061
12. Jonas Folger (BMW), +1.171
13. Andrea Locatelli (Yamaha), +1.347
14. Axel Bassani (Ducati), +1.592
15. Tito Rabat (Ducati), +1.621

Heightening of Haslam and Locatelli – Sykes with an hour and a half to go with third-best time
A little later, Leon Haslam drove a 1’41.709, making him the fifth fastest driver of the day at the time. Pata Yamaha newcomer and WorldSBK rookie Andrea Locatelli also reduced his gap to Redding’s best time to just under a second. Often more than half of the drivers are in the pits and at 4:20 p.m., for example, only 9 out of 20 drivers were on the track. Not surprisingly, BMW veteran Tom Sykes set his first scent note with 1’41.655 one and a half hours before the end. However, we keep in mind that he had done this on the S-1000RR in Australia last year. In the race, however, the man from Huddersfield in the Yorkshire countryside was passed through to P9. In this respect, the long runs are more important for the blue-whites and not a single fast lap of the “Mister Superpole”.

Jonathan Rea steps up – Mercado crashes in Sector 2
Jonathan Rea also seems to have warmed up enough. While Leandro Mercado crashed in the second sector, but was able to continue afterwards. the Kawasaki Ace set a new personal best of 1’41.395. This means that he is only two tenths short of the current Redding benchmark and the Northern Irishman is now on P2. A little later he continued to improve and was one and a quarter hours before the end with 1’41.180 at the top. What particularly impresses the record world champion is still the ease and literal looseness with which he can apparently easily shake such lap times off his sleeve. Similar to the tennis genius Roger Federer in his prime, everything at the Kawasaki hope for 2021 looks visually relaxed.

The last hour has dawned – Gerloff with a new best time
Garrett Gerloff is one of the upcoming potential world champions not only for Max Neukirchner, but also for numerous other experts. With a time of 1’41.116 he topped the previous record of Rea by 6.4 hundredths. As mentioned at the beginning of this report, most drivers are now starting to chase a fast lap with what is currently the optimal setup. Scotty and Toprak are currently the two candidates who, along with Rinaldi, Bautista, Lowes and Locatelli, are on the track to try to break Garrett Gerloff’s record. Exactly three quarters of an hour before the end of the race, the Texan adds again and drives a 1’40.978 and is the first to break the 1’41 threshold. A little later he improved again by 68 thousandths and until 35 minutes before the end of the first day none of his competitors managed a time of 1’41.

World champion Rea with a new best time
Not surprisingly, Jonathan Rea topped Gerloff’s record by 0.117 seconds when the clock was still a good quarter of an hour. However, the American drives out of the pits again 13 minutes before the end and may attempt another attack. Redding and Haslam also cracked the 1’41 threshold in the meantime. The latter even managed a 1’40.900 shortly afterwards, which put him in provisional 2nd place just under 10 minutes before the end of the first day. Jonas Folger made it into the top ten at the last moment, 0.805 seconds behind Rea’s best time.

Ranking of the first of two test days in Barcelona

The interesting top speed top values from all drivers

Unless otherwise mentioned, applies to all images (© WorldSBK).