Superbike test, Rea 'postpones' Yamaha: “I'm not satisfied”

From the 'podium' to technical problems

The last two days of collective testing on the circuit Portimao have provided partially positive indications for Jonathan Reaready for his official debut with the Yamaha at Phillip Island scheduled for February 24th and 25th. The six-time world champion in fact closed the first day with the third time overallonly to then stop in seventh position during the second round due to a technical problem which forced the temporary interruption of the test.

What needs to be improved

Overall, the Northern Irish rider still completed 138 laps, commenting on what happened to his YZF-R1 and what are the elements that the teams will have to work on to improve: “The guys have to verify exactly what happened, but I stopped in turn 1 – has explained – we lost a bit of time and then obviously we only had one bike for the rest of the test. We are focused on finding confirmation of what has already been proven and I'm not completely satisfied with the feeling. I did a longer run to understand the tire wearbut I've always gone stronger and so I can be happy. I think we have to improve a bit in terms of speed. I wasn't completely comfortable and so we are still working to find the optimal setup; this is our first time together here in Portimao and the bike behaved quite differently from what I was used to. We all have work to do but I'm happy, as well as the fact that the races are approaching.”

Studies on suspension and chassis

Overall, the former Kawasaki rider analyzed other elements tested by the team, with a feeling of general optimism for the first test in Australia: “We tested some suspension ideas, some chassis parts and normal evidence – he added – we tried geometry and setup to improve the feeling. I started from a basic setup after the Jerez tests and we arrived at a situation similar to that. We will continue to work ahead of Phillip Island. Step by step we are trying to understand how the tiresan aspect we are focusing on for give me some traction. Some ideas and parts are went better, others were the same and still others not too different. We will continue to work on it and see what we can do in Australia.”