"It was just confirming all the items we asked Bimota to implement… a lot of work to do" – Roda on Bimota’s Jerez test
Guim Roda explained why Florian Marino was testing the new Bimota bike on Day 1 at Jerez as well as talking about the Day 2 plan
A new era for Provec Racing started at the Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto with the public rollout of the KB998 that will race under the Bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team banner in 2025. It was exclusively tested by Florian Marino on Day 1 as regular riders Alex Lowes and Axel Bassani watched on at the Spanish venue, with Team Manager Guim Roda explaining the first day of testing, why Marino was on the bike and the plan for Day 2.
Marino completed 72 laps on the Kawasaki-powered Bimota machine at Jerez as he posted a best time of 1’41.360s to finish in ninth place, with the Frenchman using three different machines across Tuesday’s running. It marked the start of a new era for the Provec Racing squad which had competed with the Kawasaki ZX-10RR for a long time under the Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK banner and enjoyed so much success.
Discussing the first rollout of the KB998, Guim Roda said: “It’s been a starting point with a lot of emotions. Straight away after the race weekend, we prepared everything on Monday and then jumped on track with the new bike. Of course, we’re still in a very early stage with the development but it’s a good point to check the base bike and, from then on, start to improve.”
With Marino the only rider to test the bike at Jerez, it was down to the 31-year-old to provide feedback on the bike’s performance and his feeling with it at Jerez. Roda spoke about Marino’s comments after the day concluded, saying: “We did part of the development with Florian so now it was just confirming all the items we asked Bimota to implement in the bike and in the mass production model they’ll produce. We checked here all these improvements and then starting from that base, we’ll keep working. There’s a lot of work to do. Now it’s time to give Florian the chance to check everything is working correctly and the riders go on it.”
Regular race riders Lowes and Bassani are waiting for their turn on the machine they’ll race with next year. With test day restrictions in place, the team are trying to strategically use the days for the #22 and the #47 and Roda explained the plan for Day 2 as they look to make early gains on the KB998 and be as competitive as possible when the season begins in February 2025 in Australia.
Explaining the test plan for Wednesday, Roda said: “We’re working in this early stage to improve the bike, check the items to work on. We’re limited by the test days restrictions so we can’t use our riders to do this development plan, so we have to work with Florian to do as many laps as possible. When everything is a bit more fixed, just use the riders at the correct time and correct moment to not use more test days than needed. The target will be, if possible, when everything goes well, let them make some testing laps but just to understand the feeling.”
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