HRC Honda with from left Alvaro Bautista, the new team boss and former top driver Leon Camier and WorldSBK veteran Leon Haslam, the man with the oldest experience in the near-series World Cup. For more about the earlier years of the WSBK see our richly illustrated history. Honda’s main sponsor is Motul, the title sponsor for WorldSBK (© HRC Honda).

After various team presentations, the test will take place on March 30th

It was finally time that almost all of the drivers took to the track together this time. At the Circuito de Cataluña in Montmelo, a suburb of the Catalan metropolis of Barcelona, ​​the engines of all manufacturers will roar together on the same track for the first time from March 30th. From then on you also know what the supposedly positive test results from BMW a week ago in Jerez are really worth. Your benchmark will hardly be Jonathan Rea on the new Kawasaki ZX-10RR. Rather, they are among the challengers behind the Greens, Ducati and Yamaha together with HRC Honda. Just being faster like the two veterans Bautista and Haslam on the Fireblade CBR-1000RR-R is no easy task. In contrast, despite all the adversities, they made it into the top ten of the World Cup finals in their first season. The BMW drivers Sykes and Laverty, on the other hand, ended up well back on P12 and 15, and unlike HRC Honda, they did not have a podium to celebrate.

Jonathan Rea as a Ten Kate Honda rider at the beginning of his WorldSBK career over 10 years ago – he showed his potential for years on the inferior Honda, but it wasn’t until 2015 that he started for Kawasaki. Now everyone is waiting for the three-digit number for his victories. Although he was on the road with an inferior engine from 2019 onwards, he won titles number 5 and 6. For the first time since 2017 he should be on par with the strongest competition in terms of horsepower, acceleration and top speed.

Kawasaki Racing Team introduction: https://kawasakiracingteamworldsbk.com (Password not needed, press abort).

The season starts late and there is still time for improvement

At least BMW seems to be convinced of this, while KRT has already done around 90 percent of the test work with Jonathan Rea according to their statement. After Yamaha, the blue and white were the last ones to do their first laps on a racetrack a week ago. For the BMW newbies Jonas Folger and Michael van der Mark, their fans naturally hope that their idols will have enough time to tune their new M-1000RR in the short time of almost 2 months until the season opener in Aragon. In addition to Honda, Yamaha and defending champion Kawasaki (in the driver and team standings) presented their team on the day before the first big test in Barcelona. In terms of color, there are hardly any surprises to be expected after Honda were the first to present their presentation in the same colors as last year. As expected, Yamaha remains in blue with lots of pata red, thanks to the Italian snack manufacturer as the main sponsor. In addition, the IT company BRIXX came as a co-sponsor, also with a red logo.

The reigning WorldSSP world champion Andrea Locatelli (left in the picture) as the new team mate of Toprak Razgatlioglu, a definitely powerful team for the blue-reds, which has two more hot irons in the fire with Garrett Gerloff and Kohta Nozane. The latter is the reigning Japanese Superbike champion and there is no need to introduce the American this time. What experts think of him see under “Intervies + TV” with some opinions (© Yamaha Racing).

From Wednesday there will be the first serious comparison

While the new rev-limits of the FIM have not yet been announced, the top speed in Barcelona will play a subordinate role. You saw Jonathan Rea in Losail the year before last, how he won the races in Qatar from turns 1 to 16 despite a blatant disadvantage. We took it as an example for MotoGP, even before Sunday, to refute the thesis of the “Ducati route”. Promptly we were spot on and a Yamaha won in front of two Ducatis for the 9th time in 17 races, which means that this brand is well ahead of Ducati with 5 wins and Honda with their 3. But back to the near-series World Championship, here it’s serious for the first time when you see all the different bikes together on the same track. Of course we will report on it from Wednesday and have an observer on site for this purpose. Incidentally, the times from the previous year are worthless for comparison. After some scribblers from other portals reported about the supposed sensational times of the WSSP, it is clear to us in advance that the conversion of curve 10 can drive faster.

For information, here are the speed limits of last year for the homologated models from the various manufacturers. One can be particularly curious about the values for the new M-1000RR from BMW and especially the 2021 Kawasaki-ZX 10RR of the reigning world champion Rea.
A view of the racetrack near Barcelona with curve 10 colored red in the center of the picture, which was finally rebuilt last winter and behind it the main grandstand. At the MotoGP race 2019 we witnessed on site how Jorge Lorenzo knocked out three opponents from the race with Rossi, Dovizioso and Viñales when he fell in the said corner. A year later, the WorldSBK had its premiere here and in exactly the same place Federico Caricasulo won the Superpole race with his crash Leon Haslam.

The voice of the world champion before the first test of strength in Barcelona

Jonathan Rea before the first test: „It is an exciting time because although the start of the season seems far away this is the first official test where all our competitors will be on track together. So it will really feel like the start of the season. We have been focused in the off-season on developing our new Ninja ZX-10RR and step-by-step getting a good feeling. Barcelona is also a track that I have not done so many laps of in the past, but we raced there last year. We will keep understanding the track, all the needs, and it is my team’s home venue. We will arrive with our new visuals and colours as the team launch will occur just before the tests start. It will be exciting and I can’t wait to get started. I feel really well-prepared and I’m looking forward to carrying on what we have been doing in the last few months..”

Jonathan Rea on the new Kawasaki ZX-10RR in winter outfit at the Autodromo do Algarve in Portugal. He has already completed many test kilometers and of course the fans are also interested in how the first comparison with the competition looks. We’re guessing that the color will be a lot of green (© Kawasaki Racing Team).