Rea ends on top as Official Phillip Island test concludes
Final session for WorldSBK before season gets underway
Basking in the summer sun at the stunning Phillip Island Grand Prix circuit, MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship riders were able to take advantage of the four hours they have out on track, following a disrupted day on Monday before the opening round of the season commences in three days time.
Heading out in the early session on Tuesday morning, cooler track temperatures greeted riders and it was the Kawasaki Racing Team who were the first to lead the way of the two hour session. Whilst the fastest man from day one – Xavi Fores (Barni Racing Team) – crept back up to the top in the opening half hour of the session.
Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) ended the session on top, with a lap time of 1.30.545 and was 0.258s ahead of the rest of the field as the reigning champion led the majority of the session. Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) was one position behind Rea, following a steady opening day. Melandri was just one position ahead of his team-mate, Davies who ended in third position.
Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) put in 38 laps of the circuit and began to iron out issues from yesterday, despite suffering a crash in the closing four minutes of the session the Yorkshireman went back to the box unharmed.
Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team-mates Alex Lowes and Michael van der Mark had a varied opening session; Lowes put in strong race simulations aboard his YZF-R, finishing in eighth overall and a lap time of 1.31.692. Whilst van der Mark struggled to make it into the top ten and crashed towards the end of the session this morning, and this afternoon he made steady progress with his R1 – his time a 1.31.936.
The Australian summer weather stuck around for the afternoon session, and riders continued to take advantage of the track time following a difficult opening day of the test, however some were unable to improve on their times of this morning.
Rea finished on the top spot overall on day two, spending day two unbeatable aboard the ZX-10RR. However he faced stiff competition from Melandri, as the Italian put in an impressive 105 laps throughout the two days, and his best overall lap time was a 1.30.575. Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) completed the test in third spot – his lap time a 1.30.893 as he was just six laps shy of completing 100 in the final Official Test of the pre-season.
Sykes was able to take the fourth spot overall in the test with a final lap time of 1.31.044, making him just under half a second shy of the top spot. Monday’s fastest man Fores ended in the top five – setting his fastest lap time in the morning session on day two.
Leon Camier (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) continues his strong and steady progress throughout the testing, as he ties up his short winter testing with a top six finish and an overall lap time of 1.31.293. Lorenzo Savadori (Milwaukee Aprilia) was another rider to have a strong day, taking a top seven finish with a lap time of 1.31.449.
Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team continue to learn and understand how their new Honda Fireblade SP2 works, and the pair ended the test in the bottom half of the timing sheets and were almost 1.5s behind Rea. Nicky Hayden finished day two in 14th position, whilst Stefan Bradl in 19th with a lap time of 1.32.796.
Jordi Torres (Althea BMW Racing Team) was able to take a top nine position in Phillip Island, his lap time of 1.31.673 putting in 88 laps around the circuit, as German team-mate Markus Reiterberger struggled on the final day, but was still able to salvage a 15th position finish.
The final winter test concluded at Phillip Island this week, as the 2017 season kicks off on Friday 24th February with flags being waved for FP1 at 9.45am LT (GMT +11).
More, from a press release issued by Kawasaki:
New Season Approaches After Final Tests
Kawasaki Racing Team riders Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes stand on the eve of the new FIM Superbike World Championship season having completed their final winter test today. Rea ended up fastest of all on his Ninja ZX-10RR, with Sykes fourth quickest.
The popular Phillip Island circuit will host the first round of the season between 24th and 26th February and will offer the first points scoring opportunities of the new year for 2013 World Champion Tom Sykes and double champion Jonathan Rea, who won the title in 2015 and 2016.
The weather at the unique 4.445km circuit, which features long left hand corners and a location very close to the edge of an ocean, was very different from the changeable first day of testing to the drier and more consistent second day. Day two allowed Rea to post his best lap of 1’30.545 on race tyres. This was well under the existing lap record pace.
Sykes was also under the existing lap record on race tyres, with his 1’31.044, despite having to work on his final machine set-up for the start of the season, and losing some available time today after a low speed fall at turn four.
Tom and Jonathan now have two days to relax and complete their final preparations for what promises to be a competitive 13-round/26-race season. Having made real progress with the 2017 Ninja ZX-10RR through the winter test programme each official KRT rider has positive expectations as they now anticipate racing at the high-speed Australian circuit in just a few days time.
The first qualifying sessions of the new season start on Friday 24th February, with race one to be held at 3pm local Australian time on Saturday and the second race of the year coming along 24 hours after the first.
After the opening round has been completed the second event will take place at the relatively new and highly popular Chang International Circuit in Buriram, Thailand, between 10th and 12th March.
Jonathan Rea, stated: “Now we have picked the bike we will use for race weekend and put the package together. I have had such a good off-season; I feel I have done a really good job with my personal condition and I have managed to stay healthy so far. Every winter test we’ve done we have been working step-by-step. We understood at the end of last year, when we made a huge change for Qatar, I could race the bike again. So during the winter tests it was not about re-inventing the wheel. Already the ZX-10RR has given us some more potential. We were already at a high level. This winter was about building the package, building momentum and confidence. Now I feel like I have it so I just hope we can stay safe and bag some big points at the start of the new season.”
Tom Sykes, stated: “We had a lot better weather today than yesterday. We lost a bit of time in these tests but it is not the end of the world not to be the fastest rider in the timesheets. The good thing is that we understand where we are and where we need to find a clear improvement. So that leaves me relaxed going into the first race weekend of the year. We can make improvements in every corner so if we can find those our lap times should be nicely improved too. I had a small crash today, such a small crash, but the bike got tied in knots in the gravel and that left the lads in the team with a lot of work to do. We just need to make a good opening race weekend and leave here with more points than we have done in the recent past.”
Pere Riba, Crew Chief for Jonathan Rea, stated: “Jonathan did his lap times on a regular race tyre and we have to be pleased with the result after these two days of testing. It has confirmed all the jobs we have been doing in the wintertime. Before we came here, we felt very strong with the whole package of the bike. We have done long runs, fast laps for one lap and tested many things to create a package that we have confirmed here. In all conditions we feel the bike is working well. We did not do a really long run today but we made 20-something laps, which is race distance, and it was impressive. The drop from the best lap time to the lap time after 20 laps was very small. So we are positive for race weekend.”
Marcel Duinker, Crew Chief for Tom Sykes, stated: “The changeable weather on the first day interrupted our plan but this test was all about preparing ourselves for the race weekend. We finalised our test plan in the previous Jerez test and it was all about preparing for the race in this Australian test. We got some interference due to the weather yesterday and today’s crash, which reduced our track time. We will make a proper plan for Friday’s opening sessions over the next two days. This is the track where we have never been very competitive but we can improve a lot for the weekend, and I am confident we will.”
More, from a press release issued by Althea BMW Racing:
Althea BMW concludes the Australian tests positively
Phillip Island (Australia), Tuesday 21 February 2017
After yesterday’s wet conditions, the sun was shining again today at the Australian track of Phillip Island, allowing the Althea BMW Racing team to make the most of this final day of official testing before the 2017 Superbike season really gets underway.
Riders Jordi Torres and Markus Reiterberger were able to work with their technicians without interruptions, making the final preparations to their BMW S 1000 RR bikes. After a solid day’s work, both riders are keen to embark on the real challenge…
On Friday, the curtain officially goes up on the 2017 World Superbike season, with the first two races of the new year taking place on Saturday and Sunday, at 3pm local time (CET+10).
Jordi Torres (Althea BMW Racing Team #81) – 1’31.673
“Today hasn’t gone badly. This morning I started to build confidence and lap more consistently with my BMW. We continued to compare the two bikes with their different configurations and then, with the one that seems to perform better, I made some fast laps. In the afternoon, the track temperature was a lot higher and things were more difficult. We focused on trying to improve feeling in these conditions, considering that it might be similar for the upcoming races.”
Markus Reiterberger (Althea BMW Racing Team #21) – 1’32.071
“We had some positive feelings today. First, we compared the two bikes, in their 2016 and 2017 configurations. I struggled to do a very fast lap in the morning while in the second session, I improved both my feeling and my rhythm with bike 1, the 2017 bike. I was completing a good long run but unfortunately, I made a small mistake and suffered a fast crash. Luckily, I wasn’t hurt but I’m just sorry for the work I’ve caused for the mechanics. I went back out on bike 2, which was useful as I’m now sure that the bike we will use this weekend is bike 1. I know we can make further improvement.”
More, from a press release issued by Aruba.it Racing Ducati:
The Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team concludes the last pre-season tests in Phillip Island
The Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team took it back to the track in Phillip Island (Australia) for the second and last day of official tests ahead of the 2017 season opener, scheduled for February 24-26. After the rain that hindered yesterday’s program, clear skies and warmer temperatures allowed the riders to make the most of the four hours of track time today.
Both Marco Melandri and Chaz Davies significantly improved their lap times, ending the session respectively in second and third position in the combined rankings. The pair quickly made progress in the morning and then focused on race pace – particularly on tyre management – as the track and air temperatures went up in the afternoon, successfully completing one last “time attack” in the final minutes.
The riders and their crews will now observe a short break ahead of the first free-practice session, scheduled for 09:45 local time on Friday (23:45 CET on Thursday).
Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #33) – 1:30.575 (2nd)
“After a difficult first day because of bad weather, we got off a solid start today. In the afternoon the hotter conditions reduced the overall grip but the team has done a great job. We tried new settings, which proved to work very well for me. The thing I’m most happy about is that we managed to finally maximize the grip on new tyres, which had been somewhat a weak spot for us throughout the winter. It’s only a test, but it’s always important to feel good on the bike so I’m hopeful ahead of the racing weekend, which I’ll take step by step.”
Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #7) – 1:30.893 (3rd)
“Throughout these tests we’ve been careful, moving step by step without making drastic changes to our base setup but also exploring a little bit given the particular nature of this track, which makes our bike a bit more difficult to turn. We’ve been moving in the right direction and getting progressively more comfortable and closer to the mark, but there’s still room for improvement. We also took different tyres to race distance, and I’m quite happy with our performance as far as that is concerned. We have good ideas about our next steps to take, and we’ll evaluate them on Friday.”
More, from a press release issued by Red Bull Honda:
Hayden and Bradl prepare for season debut after official test in Australia
Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team’s Nicky Hayden and Stefan Bradl have completed the official two-day test at Phillip Island, and they are now only three days away from the start of the opening round of the 2017 FIM Superbike World Championship, which takes place at the same venue from Friday.
After a weather-affected opening day of action at the spectacular 4.445km Australian track, the riders enjoyed much better conditions today as they continued to work with the crews on their brand-new Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP2 machines.
Both Hayden and Bradl have completed a good number of laps today and tried different settings on many areas of the bike, which have given the team a considerable amount of information to work on ahead of the first free practice session of the year, scheduled at 9:45am local time (GMT +11) on Friday.
Nicky Hayden 69
Luckily today we had much better weather than yesterday, but we picked up more or less where we left off at Portimão. Unfortunately, we were not able to close the gap to the front like we wished we had and there is still some work to do with the electronics and the driveability. We also experienced some inconsistency from lap to lap, which didn’t help me in giving a proper feedback to the team. We will look through the data in order to try and find something in time for Friday: we need to focus on the positives and be realistic on what there is to improve the most, then we’ll see what happens.
Stefan Bradl 6
We cannot be too happy with how the test went. We knew we needed every minute of these two days of testing and for an unfortunate mix of circumstances we couldn’t make the most of it. Yesterday’s weather surely didn’t help, but we also went in the wrong direction in terms of setting up the bike and got lost a bit there. Today we had a small issue with the electronics that cost us some valuable time this afternoon and, when we got it sorted, it was too late to improve our lap-time. We have a lot of areas we need to work on and the guys will spend these two days analysing the data in order to come up with a plan to begin with. Now we have a sort of idea of what needs to be done, so I hope we will be able to improve during the weekend.
Pieter Breddels
Technical Manager
We knew there was a lot of work to do and yesterday’s weather surely didn’t help our cause. With Nicky we worked on many areas but we experienced some inconsistency from lap to lap which did not help in moving forward with the setup. He was not able to ride the bike like he wanted, so we need to do some more work to make it as responsive as he’d like. On the final lap he looked like he could improve his lap-time quite a bit, before going a bit wide at the last corner. Phillip Island is a track that requires a quite unique setup compared to Jerez and Portimão, so it became quite obvious that the settings Stefan needs on his bike are much more different than Nicky’s, especially if compared with the other two tracks we have tested on this year. It took us quite some time to find some kind of direction and we still have some work to do; we found some improvement on the very last outing so we’ll start from there.
More, from a press release issued by MV Agusta:
TOP SCORES FOR TEAM MV AGUSTA REPARTO CORSE AT PHILLIP ISLAND OFFICIAL TESTS
Phillip Island (Australia), Tuesday 20 February 2017 – Today the MV Agusta Reparto Corse Team completed the first WorldSBK official test at Phillip Island circuit, with Leon Camier closing 6th in WorldSBK class and Patrick PJ Jacobsen leading the WorldSSP timesheet with the fastest lap time.
Despite the ups and downs weather conditions on Monday, Leon Camier and his team were able to find immediately a good setup on the MV Agusta F4 RC, also thanks to the new solutions tested on the chassis and electronics. The British, who has closed 4th in the Tuesday’s afternoon session, ended up 6th (1’31.293) in the overall timesheet of the two-day official test, 0.7 s from the leader and World Champion Jonathan Rea.
In WorldSSP class Patrick Jacobsen was the fastest on the track in both today’s sessions, finishing with a time of 1’33.688 (morning session), 0.5s ahead of the seconds rider. Despite it was the first time PJ rode the MV Agusta F3 675 on the demanding Australian circuit, the new rider of the Italian squad was able to improve from time to time his lap time, arriving to lead the final standings.
Team MV Agusta Reparto Corse will be back on track on Friday, February 24 with the first free practice sessions of WorldSBK and WorldSSP, always at the Phillip Island circuit, for the official start of this 2017 season.
Leon Camier #2 WorldSBK rider – I am very happy. We definitely made some progress and we tried a lot of things on the bike chassis and electronic. I think for the race we can make another little step forward as I feel we took a very positive direction.
Patrick “PJ” Jacobsen #99 WorldSSP rider – Everything was going really good, the team is just great and I like to work with these guys a lot. Everybody is really committed and focused. I am really happy because even if this was the first time I rode the MV in this track, I had a very positive feeling and the bike really suits my style. Thank you MV Agusta for this opportunity and big thank to all the MV Agusta fans around the world.
More, from a press release issued by Pata Yamaha:
Pata Yamaha Complete Phillip Island Test Ahead of Season Opener
The Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team has concluded its pre-season preparation ahead of the 2017 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship with a two day official test at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit. Pleased with the performance of his YZF-R1, Alex Lowes finished the eight hours of track time sitting eighth in the combined times having concentrated on race simulation for the duration of the test.
Overcoming the setback of torrential rain from Monday’s opening sessions, Tuesday’s action provided the opportunity for Lowes to thoroughly test the long-run pace of his Yamaha, showing impressive consistency across the morning’s 18-lap sequence. As the afternoon temperatures rose, the Briton set out to complete a full 22-lap race-distance to analyse the Pirelli compounds, again with promising times and data collected.
Having capitalised on the best weather conditions during Monday’s late afternoon showing, Michael van der Mark concluded his first day on the Yamaha Superbike fourth in the combined times, setting a 1’32.440 on his 19th of 25 laps. Recovering quickly from a crash during the second day’s morning run, the Dutchman continued his progress with the YZF-R1 throughout the final two hours, completing his final test with a 1’31.936 set on his second machine, and sitting 13th in the overall standings. Van der Mark heads into his debut race weekend with a clear direction of progress highlighted and confident of his team’s abilities to deliver.
The Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team now looks towards the inaugural race weekend of the 2017 season, the Yamaha Finance Australian Round. Situated 140kms south of Victoria’s state capital, Melbourne, the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit houses 12 corners within its impressive and undulating layout and provides breath-taking views from its clifftop location overlooking the Bass Straight. The Australian track is a favourite of riders and fans alike, with its unique nature promising non-stop action and close racing throughout the two 22-lap battles. Lowes and van der Mark take to the 4,445m circuit at 09:45 local time on Friday 24th February for the first free practice session of the three-day weekend, with the opening race scheduled for 15:00 on Saturday.
Sunday’s climax, also scheduled for 15:00, promises to be one-to-watch as it heralds the debut of WorldSBK’s new grid format. The podium sitters from Saturday’s opening contest will commence the second race from the third row, but in reverse order, with the victor now starting in ninth. The fourth placed rider will be granted automatic promotion to pole position for the following day, with fifth to ninth place finishers assembling behind on the front two rows. Riders finishing Saturday’s race from 10th onwards will continue to line up in the order determined by their Superpole qualification.
Alex Lowes
8th / 1’31.629 / 106 laps
“The team have done a great job today. I feel good on the R1, we have some clear areas to work on but we’ve completed two race simulations and I enjoyed it a lot. There are definitely some things I can still improve but after missing most of yesterday due to the weather, we managed to do a lot of laps today which gives us plenty of information for the team and myself to think about for the coming weekend. Over the whole of winter testing we have done a good job, so we can relax for two days now and look forward to the start of the year.”
Michael van der Mark
13th / 1’31.936 / 88 laps
“We changed the bike a lot this morning compared to yesterday but I didn’t feel the big change I was expecting so we struggled a little bit in the first session. I had a big crash in turn eight when I lost the front so after that I went out on the second bike. I set my fastest lap this afternoon on the second machine but I still wasn’t completely happy with the set up, so we are still looking for the improvement I am after. I followed Alex this afternoon and I am clear with what we have to improve so now we have to check through the data to allow me to turn better and provide the confidence for the race weekend. I am sure we will find the solution, but I was hoping to have already made the step by the end of today’s test.”