Rea feeling positive after electronics shakeup

Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea was in a confident mood as he concluded WorldSBK testing at Portimao on Wednesday.

Just 0.009s separated him from Ducati’s Alvaro Bautista at the close of the final afternoon on the Algarve, with a similarly minute margin between the pair, and Michael Rinaldi, on day one. A positive two days on track and the new electronics setup in the KRT box added to the confident manner of the six-time Superbike champion ahead of the opening round of 2023.

“Conditions are much better here than in Jerez,” Rea commented after day one and the move across the Iberian peninsula over the last two weeks. “Better temperatures straight away, like from 1030 this morning we could start. We had some big items to test, like chassis components and one was very positive. It brought some really good feelings on the edge of the tyre entering the corner. We made a really positive step with that, the other one not so positive.

“Working with electronics, we made some really good improvements there from power delivery side, the bike feels a lot more manageable than it has done around here. Quite a busy track, especially on the gas because it’s so undulating, so that was positive. We worked all day with a base rear tyre and at the end we used the softer rear, the SCX compound and I was able to be fast enough with that.”

While the KRT squad had a raft of items to test from Kawasaki, a new electronics crew was bedding in. Christophe Lambert taking up the overseeing position of Electronics and Data Engineering Co-ordinator while Sander Donkers replaced Davide Gentile on Rea’s side of the garage.

“Good!” Rea confirmed, when asked how the change in personnel was going. “If anything just a bit slower than normal, just understanding them