Jonathan Rea with his crew Chief Pere Riba – a committed and incomparably successful duo. For more on Pere’s years as a driver, see our richly illustrated history of WorldSBK (© Kawasaki Racing Team).

Top times despite tires for the Superpole Race – the voices of the team

Jonathan Rea: „It was a positive two-day test. In some of our previous tests we had been held up by the weather and this is the first time we have been on the right track with all of our rivals. We are satisfied with all the results. We tested many items on the bike from the standpoint of the chassis, engine and electronics. The new Ninja ZX-10RR is starting to feel very comfortable for me. On the last day we were working on our race setup and I did a race simulation that was paused – but I was very happy with the pace, especially in the middle of the day when we were trying to simulate race time. Towards the end we did a time attack with the SCX tire, and I was able to be pretty quick. We finished the test on a positive note and are looking forward to Motorland Aragon in a few weeks’ time, where we will continue to work on our chassis and take further steps before the first lap. “ (The editorial team: Pirelli developed the SCX tire especially for the Superpole race, in which only 10 laps are driven. Depending on the track, you lose between half a second and a full second on a qualifier, as one of the team members explained to us).

Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki) in front of Aruba.it Ducati newcomer Michael Ruben Rinaldi, the successor of Chaz Davies in the works team of the Reds, while the Welshman now competes for his former GoEleven Racing team (© WorldSBK).

Pere Riba, Jonathan Rea’s crew chief: „It was positive here in Barcelona. Jonathan never stops growing and this winter he’s been tough on himself physically and mentally, and it’s amazing. He’s still making progress, which is strange after winning the championship six years, but he’s perhaps in the best shape I’ve seen. As for the test, the technical things, we are happy because we have confirmed things that we have already tested in Portimão and Jerez, but only for a short time as we were sometimes bothered by the weather conditions. Here we could do two full days. This route is challenging in some areas and that’s a good thing. It’s got a long straight, and we’ve been working on some parts of the engine. It was very positive.”

Jonathan Rea and Pere Riba – After a good 6 years, the two understand each other blindly and the Northern Irishman already understands a lot of Spanish and when the team people talk to each other, he comes along quite well. What he will probably never take over is their eating habits with dinner often well after 8 p.m. until around midnight (© Kawasaki Racing Team).

Riba continues: “We continued to work on the electronics to improve the weakest points. On the landing gear side, we also used something from Showa to improve balance. We tried creating a new link to understand some areas we’d like to improve a bit in terms of stern location and loading. What was surprising was that Johnny drove the fastest lap of all and managed his best time on an SCX tire. Which was actually very good, but when we tried a qualifier in between, it didn’t work as we expected. We had a different Q, but we didn’t use them, so Jonathan made his best time on an SCX tire. I think some other guys were doing their lap times on a Q tire. We are satisfied with this test. We will work on making the package even stronger in the next test. “

Pere Riba as a rider on Yamaha – here’s a previous pic of him from MotoGP.com.

The still slightly battered team mate of the 6-time world champion

Alex Lowes: „This test was excellent for us, although yesterday I struggled a little more with my shoulder than I expected. This route has quite a few changes of direction. In the afternoon I wasn’t entirely comfortable on the bike, so we buckled up a bit, but I think it made the shoulder worse, maybe because of the limitation. On the other hand, I felt good on the second day. We finished a little earlier, which meant I didn’t want to time off at the end of the day, but my pace on race tires was good. Low 1’41s; I am satisfied with that. I went through the entire priority list for this test and managed to get the whole thing done – that’s why we finished a little earlier. We have a good plan of what to work on in the remaining tests before the start of the season. Two positive days in total, so I’m looking forward to investing the time now to regain my overall physical condition and to get back on the Kawasaki in Aragon. “

Alex Lowes (Kawasaki ZX-10RR) – the Englishman did everything right, concentrating primarily on coordination and long runs instead of fighting for best times for which there is no flower pot to be won. The value of test times is often difficult to estimate, even for experts, because some riders are on the road with an almost empty tank and qualifier tires and others are in race trim or at least have bikes configured for the Superpole Race.

Marcel Duinker, Crew Chief of Alex Lowes: „It was a nice test for us. On the first day the track was pretty slippery and everyone had a bit of problems. After that we made some small changes to the bike setup and Alex was doing very well, so we closed the gap to the top guys to just a few tenths of a second. In the end, we’re very happy that we got our best lap on race tires when a lot of people got their best laps on qualifying tires. We have confirmed some points from the winter tests again on a completely different track, layout and conditions and are very happy with the end result. Alex drove a total of around 150 laps. The track is a little different from last year, at Turn 10, but it’s a minor change. Overall, I am satisfied with the result of this test. “