“Honestly I struggled today, I didn’t feel so good on the bike,” explained Rea, whose Kawasaki teammate Tom Sykes topped the sheets on Day 1 in Aragon. “We had to test some new items that we requested from both Showa and Kawasaki, namely a new front fork with a completely new specification. We changed some things in the chassis components in the front of the bike to create more stability and try and be more stable under braking. My initial comment was ‘it’s ok’, we don’t understand but just quickly looking through some data at the end of the session looks like we’ve made a backwards step with that.”

Rea had a low profile but fruitful off-season characterized by sessions he saw Sykes dominate, but has turned the tables so far when the lights go out for the races. “We have some really good information from the November test here; we had a test where we were fast and solid and constant, so it’s a real shame that for tomorrow I feel a little bit underprepared as we haven’t had the chance to make a race simulation like I like to do, and tomorrow we’ll start with the setting we had in November like a base setting. Also the fact that we only have two one hour sessions, and these components aren’t like changing a spring or changing a small part of the bike, it’s quite time consuming, so to make these changes during the session we would lose a lot more time.”

With MotorLand having featured as a test venue, the limited track time on Friday is not the only reference the riders have to get the setting right for the races, the first of which sees lights go out on Saturday. So what does the Northern Irishman have planned for the Saturday sessions?

“Practice 3 is going to be a real test session for me and not just a warm up for the race so we need to be focused and try and react fast to that session. The wind’s been so severe in the last few days there’s so much dust on the track, and not so much track activity recently so that’s a factor. Also Pirelli have brought a new front tyre and with the temperature here at this time of year, the crossover between the soft tyre and the medium tyre is…well, the soft has much more potential for a lap time, but whether in 20 degrees at 1 o’clock in the afternoon it’s going to last the race, we’ll have to see…”

It seems tyres won’t be playing too much on the defending Champion’s mind however, as he looks to catch up to his teammate and duel it out once again as the Kawasaki duo did in Thailand, thrilling the crowd with two classic contests.

“There were so many factors to confirm today and we managed to confirm the tyre side of things, but setting we will go back to basics for tomorrow.”

FP3 begins at 8:45 local time (GMT +2), before Tissot-Superpole defines the grid for Race 1 at 13:00.