SBK | Rea: “I've experimented with the Yamaha, we're at a good point”

The winter of the Superbike World Championship is almost over and now there is less and less left until the start of the championship. Before leaving for Australia, however, the riders completed the last two days of testing on the Portimao track, which left us with some further indications on the values ​​on the field this season. Jonathan Rea made an excellent impression, his first approach with the Yamaha seems quite good and the Northern Irishman said he was satisfied with the work done during the winter break.

On the final day of testing alone he completed 64 laps and was stopped by a technical problem: “The guys have to verify exactly what happened, but I stopped at turn 1 and we stayed in the garage for a long time, so we lost a bit of time for what happened. Then we were able to use just one bike for the rest of the test. We concentrated again on our workload, confirming the bike and I'm not entirely satisfied with the feeling I had. I did a lap longer to understand the drop in tyres, but I've become faster and faster, so there are some positive aspects.”

There are certainly some areas to improve, not everything is 100% ready. However, Rea knows that this journey is only at the beginning and the direction taken is the right one: “I think our overall speed needs to be improved a little. I wasn't completely comfortable, so we are still working to find the right set-up. optimal for this style; it's the first time we've come here to Portimao together and the bike was behaving a little differently than I was used to. There's work to do for everyone, but I'm happy, confident and relieved for the end of tests.”

“We tested some ideas for the suspension, some parts of the chassis and normal test elements,” continues the Northern Irishman. “We experimented with the geometry and the set-up, trying to improve our feeling. I didn't do a full weekend in Portimao with Yamaha, so I started from a Jerez-based set-up and in the end we found ourselves in a similar position. We're in a good place, but I think we can sort it out straight away and continue working on it at Phillip Island.”

All things considered, the Portimao test was good for understanding how to continue working in view of the start of the season. The Phillip Island round, which will kick off 2024, is ever closer and Rea is ready to return to the track: “The elements have been positive, step by step we are trying to understand how the tire behaves, an area on which we're trying to focus on right now, to give me some traction as I pick up the bike. Some ideas and parts were better, others were the same and not too different. We'll keep working on them and see what we can do in Australia.” .