After missing the first day of action, six-time Champion Jonathan Rea stormed to the top of the timesheets by less than a tenth

The final day of MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship testing concluded at MotorLand Aragon with Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) topping the times despite missing the first day. The #65 tested only on Wednesday but he was straight up to speed as he joined Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) and Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Team), who topped the morning session, in going under the existing race lap record.

SPLIT PROGRAMME FOR KAWASAKI: one eye on the present, one on the future

Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK’s race riders, Jonathan Rea and Alex Lowes, only rode for one day at Aragon but they made use of it with Rea leading Lowes in a 1-3 in the afternoon session, and a 1-5 overall. The pair had a split programme for their sole test day with the #22 focusing on future developments and the 2024 season, while Rea was looking at the present as he looked to prepare best for the final four rounds of 2023. Rea was fastest in the afternoon as he set a 1’49.101s, which was good enough for top spot overall as he went under the race lap record, while Lowes posted a 1’49.791s for fifth. Lowes was the busiest rider on track, completing 130 laps; including 82 in the afternoon alone.

EVENLY MATCHED: Petrucci, Bautista set same lap time as Ducati try new items

Petrucci used the SCQ tyre to set his best time of 1’49.168s to finish the morning session on top, and joint second overall. The #9 spent the afternoon doing some comparison work between brake disks as he looked to find time in this part of the cornering phase to maximise his lap time. The WorldSBK rookie also had some electronic setups to try with engine braking as well as small adjustments to the triple clamp. In total, he completed 47 laps after ending his testing programme early on Wednesday.

At the factory team, Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) got his hands on a new front fork that’s been designed with 2024 in mind, while the #1 also worked on some setup ideas they have in mind if the feeling improved compared to yesterday. He finished the day with the exact same lap time as Petrucci, a 1’49.168s, as he added 97 laps to his total. However, at the very end of the day, Bautista crashed at Turn 14. Teammate Michael Ruben Rinaldi finished the day in seventh with 72 laps under his belt.

HONDA’S RAPID PACE CONTINUES: Lecuona surges into the top four

Honda continued to have three riders on track at Aragon with Iker Lecuona (Team HRC) the fastest of the trio. He completed 58 laps, all in the morning as he opted not to go out in the afternoon and set a 1’49.466s to secure fourth overall, with teammate Xavi Vierge in sixth as he put another 87 laps in on Wednesday. Tetsuta Nagashima was also on track as part of the test team and rounded out the WorldSBK field but did add a valuable 80 laps to Honda’s test programme, with the Japanese rider improving his time, like the majority of the field, in the closing stages of the test.

VAN DER MARK ON TOP AT BMW: nothing to separate the quartet of BMW riders

Michael van der Mark (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) led the four BMW riders between eighth and 11th place. The Dutchman completed 79 laps as he continued gaining fitness following his return from injury while he also tried some new brake ducts. His best time, a 1’50.362s, put him two tenths clear of Garrett Gerloff (Bonovo Action BMW) in ninth with Scott Redding (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK) completing the top ten with a 1’50.655s. Loris Baz (Bonovo Action BMW) lost a chunk of running time in the afternoon when he had a mechanical issue but was still able to add 73 laps to his tally and finish in 11th.

BULEGA ON TOP AGAIN: Championship leader fastest in WorldSSP

Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing WorldSSP Team) continued to be the faster of the two WorldSSP riders on track ahead of Tarran Mackenzie (PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team). The #11’s best time of 1’53.941s was set in the morning session and he racked up 37 laps while Mackenzie lapped around three seconds slower. He completed 31 laps on day two.

Full results from day two at Aragon:

1. Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) 1’49.101s, 68 laps

2. Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) 1’49.168, 97 laps

3. Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Team) 1’49.168, 47 laps

4. Iker Lecuona (Team HRC) 1’49.466s, 58 laps

5. Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) 1’49.791, 130 laps

6. Xavi Vierge (Team HRC) 1’49.984, 87 laps

7. Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) 1’50.094, 72 laps

8. Michael van der Mark (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) 1’50.362, 79 laps

9. Garrett Gerloff (Bonovo Action BMW) 1’50.557, 83 laps

10. Scott Redding (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) 1’50.655, 81 laps

11. Loris Baz (Bonovo Action BMW) 1’50.935, 73 laps

12. Tetsuta Nagashima (Team HRC) 1’51.026, 80 laps

More, from a press release issued by Team HRC:

Team HRC returns to work with testing at Aragón

Just over a week before the 2023 Superbike World Championship resumes at the Magny-Cours circuit in France, Team HRC has been busy testing at Motorland Aragón in Spain with factory riders Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge.

Although there has been no Superbike racing for a month, Vierge and Lecuona have had little time to rest, with Xavi competing in – and winning – the Suzuka 8 Hours as part of a three-rider team, and Iker taking part in both the British, Austrian and, this coming weekend, the Catalan MotoGP rounds as a substitute rider. Focused on the final WorldSBK rounds, Team HRC has made good use of this week’s track time in Spain, working hard to prepare its factory CBR1000RR-R for the upcoming events, which include a round at Aragón itself on 22-24 September.

Despite some strong winds affecting the session, the generally hot and sunny conditions allowed team and riders to complete a good part of the planned work. Having already tested at Motorland earlier in the year, both Iker and Xavi feel confident in their preparations for the races at this particular track and are also pleased with what has been achieved with a view to the remaining 2023 championship rounds.

Team HRC will be back on track for round nine of the WorldSBK championship, set to take place at Magny-Cours, France, over the weekend of 8-10 September.

Iker Lecuona  7

“It felt good to get back on my CBR after one month and two stints in MotoGP, and I’m very pleased that I was immediately fast after just a couple of laps, re-adapting my riding style to the Superbike quite quickly. The MotoGP feeling is definitely different of course, but useful as well, because I feel that I changed something in my style over the last couple of weeks that might also help me in SBK. In the end, every racing experience helps and allows you to keep learning and improving as a rider. As for this test, we consider it a very good session and we worked a lot even if conditions were difficult due to the wind. That prevented us from testing several things because it would have been hard to get a real feel for them with those gusts of wind. So, we mainly worked on the setup of the bike and on my riding position. We changed a few details here and there and made a step forward, I think. On day two, with less wind, we tested those modifications again in the morning and they again worked well, so that’s positive. A few new items also helped us to improve a little but when the wind picked up again after lunch on day 2, we decided to finish earlier. We nevertheless leave here in a good mood.”

Xavi Vierge  97

“I’m happy to be back riding my bike after the summer break, a short summer break in our case! The test has been good except for the weather conditions, which were tricky in terms of the wind. On the first morning the track was also a bit dirty, so we weren’t able to test so many new things. I mainly focused on myself and on making some adjustments to the bike setup for this track, which is one I struggled at last time I was here. It also took me some time to regain my feeling with the tyres on the back of my experience at Suzuka. So, the test has allowed me to gradually rebuild my confidence. We’ve focused on acceleration, one of our weak points, as this track is good for that kind of test because the grip is not the best. We gathered a great deal of information for the engineers to analyse and are ready for the second part of the season, when we will visit tracks that I think suit us better, so we’ll try to exploit that factor.”

More, from a press release issued by Kawasaki Racing Team:

Motorland Test Wrapped Up For KRT

Jonathan Rea and Alex Lowes took part in one day of testing at Motorland Aragon in Spain, alongside many of their WorldSBK rivals, on Wednesday 30 August 2023. Rea was the fastest overall and Lowes fifth quickest.

Due to restrictions on the number of testing days each rider can use over a season, Rea and Alex only rode in the second and final day of the Motorland Aragon private tests. The team itself worked on both days, however, as regular test rider Florian Marino and full-time Kawasaki WorldSSP rider for the MTM squad, Adrian Huertas, took part in the first day of testing in Tuesday 29 August.

With just one day on track for Alex and Jonathan it was important to keep to their pre-test plans and schedules, as well as getting up to racing speed after a long summer break that began after the Autodrom Most round at the end of July. The WorldSBK race season restarts relatively soon and there will also be a round at Motorland Aragon itself, near the end of September.

While Rea mostly worked on overall set-up and performance items, Lowes concentrated on some potential new items for next season after Marino had first evaluated them on the opening day. Rea set a best lap of 1’49.101 and Lowes a 1’49.791.

Warm but not fiercely hot track conditions provided a good opportunity for all the riders to make consistent evaluations of their machine set-ups. As this was not an official race weekend the riders were able to have more than one machine in their pit boxes, which helped speed up the process of back-to-back set-up comparisons.

Adrian Huertas rode at Motorland as recognition of his recent performances in WorldSSP and winning the WorldSSP3000 championship on a Kawasaki in 2021. The 20-year-old Spaniard set some strong lap times in his first test on an official KRT Superbike machine. He set a personal best of 1’51.044s, which placed him sixth overall on day one – the only day he was on track on the official Ninja ZX-10RR. Adrian rode for 79 laps in all.

Florian Marino, the team’s regular test rider, continued his valuable on-track development role, setting a personal best lap time of 1’51.689 in the process.

Next up for Rea and Lowes will be the ninth round of the championship itself, to be held at Magny Cours in France between 8 – 10 September.

Jonathan Rea, stated: “It has been a positive day and I really enjoyed riding the bike again, especially after a long time away. I was surprised how fast I was able to be on the first lap, already inside the 1’50 bracket. That set the tone for the rest of the test as we were able to try some things that we will see for sure in the Motorland Round; some fine tuning. More or less this day was geared towards a performance test, trying to understand our potential. We have been consistently fast with race tyres and also at the end we tried a qualifying tyre. We were quite competitive with our lap times today, both on race rubber and qualifying rubber. I leave the test with optimism that we can have a really positive weekend in Magny Cours. Thanks to the team for all the effort to get here during the summer and it will set us at a good rhythm for the rest of the year.”

Alex Lowes, stated: “It is really nice to be back on the Ninja ZX-10RR after the summer break. I had a lot on my test schedule. I actually had three bikes in the morning, trying different set ups and a few things for 2024. Some were quite positive and some not so positive – which is completely normal when we are testing new items. It is more mentally tiring than physically tiring, because you are really trying to think about the good points and the bad points. You want to make the right decisions now, so that it can help us next year. I did 91 laps today, which is a decent amount to get me back into the swing of things before Magny Cours. I did a little bit of a run at the end of the test on my 2023 base bike that I will be riding next week at Magny Cours just to get back into the swing of that.”

Pere Riba, Crew Chief for Jonathan Rea, stated: “The plan in this test with Johnny was to find the base set-up we will use for race weekend, which is only a couple of weeks away. We worked calmly and made two different bike set-ups to understand which one to use. We evaluated the differences and we found one direction for the best set-up. This is the job we wanted to do. We also tried a few small new items and collected information about them. In the end Johnny made the fastest lap time which gives us good confidence. We are ready for the races.”

Marcel Duinker, Crew Chief for Alex Lowes, stated: “The test was all in favour of next season. We have worked hard over the last couple of months to prepare for this test and we brought some upgrades on the bike. On the first day with Florian we had a shakedown of every single bit. Step-by-step with this new material we improved the bike. Florian was really in the mix and as a test rider he was in between the WorldSBK riders, so this was very pleasing. With Alex we followed more or less the same test plan on day two. A few items we had on the first day list we took off, as with Alex the plan was to make more laps on every single bit to understand not only the initial performance but also the performance over a longer distance. We are pleased with the results and we gathered a lot of information. We have two months before we enter the winter tests so we can make some changes here and there to these upgraded materials, but we are happy with the results of this test and things worked out as we expected. Next week we will be heading to Magny Cours and we are looking forward to it.”

Adrian Huertas, stated: “This is a much more powerful bike than the one I am used to riding. It is an awesome bike, an incredible experience and I enjoyed it a lot. It has a lot of power which felt really, really good. That is good for me. It was very different to ride a Superbike but I worked together with the team and they taught me how to improve a little bit. I have also taken some good experience to help me on the 600. I think this will be very helpful and this is like an extra motivation now. I think when I arrive in Magny Cours for WorldSSP I can fight for the victory. I want to thank all the team for this opportunity.”

More, from a press release issued by Aruba.it Racing Ducati:

The summer break came to an end at the Morland circuit in Aragon, where Alvaro Bautista and Michael Rinaldi underwent two days of testing ahead of the final phase of the season, scheduled for next week at Magny-Cours (France).

After the first day with sub-optimal track conditions and the tricky wind that prevented the riders from getting the best out of the session, both Alvaro Bautista and Michael Rinaldi were able to ride more consistently today.

Bautista completed 91 laps to close with the second fastest time (1’49.169), 67 thousandths behind Rea (Kawasaki), while Rinaldi (72 laps completed) posted a time of 1’50.094 to finish fifth.

Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing #Ducati 1)

“Today the feeling with the bike was definitely better than on the first day, also because the wind was much lower. We did a good job trying new solutions on the front end to improve the bike, especially in braking areas. We gathered some important data, even though maybe our expectations were higher, but it’s clear that the non-optimal track conditions combined with the wind didn’t allow us to express ourselves at our best. Anyway, I am very satisfied with the work we did with the team.

Michael Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #21)

“We did a good job even though the conditions were quite complicated on the first day of testing. I think, however, that we collected data that can be very useful not only for the Aragon Round but also for the end of the season. We focused on the set-up work rather than the fast lap. I am looking forward to Magny-Cours.”
WorldSSP

Intense work also for Nicolò Bulega and the Panigale V2 of the Aruba.it Racing team: the rider closes  the two days at Aragon with the best time of 1’53.941

Nicolò Bulega (Aruba.it Racing WSSP #11)

“In terms of lap-times, I can’t express myself because we didn’t have many references being only two WorldSSP riders riding together with the other WorldSBK riders. Maybe I was expecting something more but we also have to consider that the track conditions were not the best. Anyway, we worked hard to improve for the next rounds and that is what matters.”

More, from a press release issued by PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team:

WorldSSP – Testing at Aragón concludes for the PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team

The PETRONAS MIE Racing Honda Team and its Supersport rider Tarran Mackenzie have completed a two-day test at the Motorland Aragón circuit in Spain with positive results.

Having had time to rest and recharge since the successful eight WorldSSP round in the Czech Republic, and the positive Suzuka 8H experience, the British rider were eager to get back to work this week in preparation for the final events of the 2023 season, participating in this week’s test alongside most of the factory Superbike teams and several privateers.

On track on both Tuesday and Wednesday, Mackenzie took the opportunity to familiarize himself with the Spanish track, considering that round ten will take place at Aragón over the weekend of 22-24 September. Over the two days, the Brit worked hard with his technicians to identify solutions for the CBR600RR that might be of use during the last four rounds of the 2023 Supersport season.

Having won the latest Supersport race at Most in challenging conditions, Tarran and his team are determined to get the very best out of their package, so as to be able to score some solid results also in dry conditions during what remains of this year’s championship.

Tarran Mackenzie

“This test at Aragón has gone well. We were able to test a new engine setup but although it brought some improvement, I think we hoped for a little more. We tried a few different things with the chassis setup too and made a good step there, albeit there’s some room for further improvement also there, I think. I always struggle a little going from riding the Superbike back to the Supersport so it’s been very good to have these two days to adapt back to the 600. Now we’ll head to Magny-Cours, another new one for me, where we can hopefully keep improving. I’m looking forward to it!”