Jerez de la Frontera played host to pre-season winter testing for the Superbike World Championship again today, as teams continue to put in the miles before the season opener at Phillip Island, now only three weeks away.
Rain held up track action this morning, however once the track dried up, teams didn’t waste time to get out on track.
Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) made the most of the dry track in the afternoon and put in an impressive amount of laps – 61 in total. Moving to the top of the timing screens on his 12th lap he was only challenged by team-mate Tom Sykes all day.
However in the final 15 minutes of the day, the reigning champion clocked an impressive lap time of 1.39.248. At the end of day one 1.672s spilt Rea from Sykes, who also spent the majority of the afternoon out on track – putting in 64 laps and ending with a time of 1.40.920. The pair made the most of the track time and were both able to undergo race simulations.
IODARacing made further steps towards their 2017 campaign with Argentinean Leandro Mercado who set the third fastest time of 1.42.462, improving in the closing minutes of the day.
Making only his second appearance aboard the WorldSBK machine, the former STK1000 rider will be using his time in Europe as a learning curve, as he hopes to have competitive pace in Australia.
Riccardo Russo (Guandalini Racing) put in a solid day of testing in southern Spain, despite suffering from a small crash, of which he was able to walk away from unharmed.
As he makes the step up into the WorldSBK series aboard the Yamaha YZF R1 the 24 year old ended the day in fourth position.
Following on from a successful test at Almeria last weekend, Pedercini Racing SC-Project had both their WorldSBK and STK1000 efforts present for the Jerez test, as they continue to build on their machine for the season ahead.
Alex De Angelis was able to secure the fifth fastest time of the day whilst STK1000 rider Jeremy Guarnoni was just one position back from the San Marinese rider.
Illia Mykhalchyk (TripleM Racing) spent the majority of the day out on track, putting in long stints aboard his STK1000 machine. Setting the seventh fastest time of the day, the Ukrainian’s time of 1.44.151 put him as the third fastest rider from the class, and put him over two seconds ahead of his team-mate, Marc Moser.
Keen to get some laps under their belt ahead of the first ever season in the World Championship, ETG Racing were present at Jerez with their Spanish rider Xavier Pinsach putting in almost 50 laps in an interrupted day – securing a lap time of 1.45.619.