For Kawasaki Racing Team’s Jonathan Rea, testing only began on Tuesday the 22^nd of November due to heavy rains in Jerez on Monday. He and teammate Tom Sykes sat out day one and only put in solid laps yesterday, on Tuesday. With better conditions, Rea lapped the Andalusian circuit 54 times on Tuesday even though the track was still damp. He focused mainly on a new rear shock and continues to make developments today, with a race simulation planned later on in the day. Rea caught up with WorldSBK.com to discuss his progress so far.

“On Tuesday it was wet so there was no big panic to go out on track,” said Rea. “In the morning we went out early in the wet with rain tyres to understand the new rear shock. We already tested it in Aragon in the dry but Tuesday was just to draw conclusions in the wet and it all seemed fine. We waited until the track was dry enough to go out and do some meaningful testing and then the plan was to have Wednesday off but it seems it’s going to be one of the best days of the week – so looks like we will do a race simulation then – So we have the circuit Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as well so we’ll see.”

Using the rest of the week of valuable track time to finalise as much as they can before WorldSBK breaks for Christmas, Rea explains there’s still a list of things the Northern Irishman would like to tick off by the end of the week.

“Yeah we have a lot of items like chassis parts,” explains the 29-year-old. “They are very difficult because we’ve been trying to work from new engine components that have more power and more straight line speed. At a circuit like Jerez it’s difficult to test that because we only reach fifth gear and not for very long, so Aragon was a good test for that. Then it will be nice to do some log runs.

“The only problem now is defining a base setting, which was quite difficult this year. We go to a lot of different tracks and have to change quite a lot throughout the weekends to be honest, so it would be really nice to find a base setting and save time throughout next year's race weekends so we’re not going off on big tangents.”

Both Rea and Sykes have been testing the 2017 ZX-10RR and while his teammate revealed he needed to adjust his riding style to the new bike, the reigning World Champion disclosed it was quite the opposite in his case. Rea seems in accord with the new Ninja ahead of next year’s title defence campaign.

“To to be honest, this bike compared to the old bike is asking to brake super deep and accelerate quite hard,” said Rea. “Of course there’s a balance because that only works in some corners and of course, you have to carry a lot of corner speed. But the bike is requesting more of a stop and go style and I had to be very careful not lose any of my positive attributes as a rider when I first rode it. I think we understood the potential of the bike and how to make a compromise so everything seems quite in harmony.”