The MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship field headed to MotorLand Aragon this week for two days of testing with different programmes up and down the paddock. This included a split approach at Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK as Jonathan Rea and Alex Lowes took different directions, with the #65 looking at 2023 and the #22 focusing on the development of the 2024 machine.

Rea has only taken one victory in the 2023 season and that came last time out at the Autodrom Most, where a superb tyre gamble launched him up the order at the end of the race. 2023 has proven difficult for both the six-time Champion and KRT but Rea has hauled himself into third in the Riders’ Championship standings. Speaking at the test, the Ulsterman made clear what his goal was for the final four rounds of the season.

He explained: “We’re focusing more on trying to prepare for the weekend. I really want to finish the season strong right now. I’m in that battle for top three in the World Championship so that remains the focus. In the last time, we worked a lot on items we could see in the future or not. This process takes time. I want to blow the cobwebs out of summertime, arrive at Magny-Cours in a good way, fast and confident and then prepare for the Aragon Round.”

Rea also went deeper into what exactly he was testing in Spain with this goal in mind. While Lowes was trying several items looking towards 2024, Rea was working on the end of the current campaign as he ticked off his testing programme. Speaking after his sole day of testing, Rea provided details of what he was working on.

Rea said: “We had a few items to test electronically. We arrived with a bike that’s something in the middle of what we had at the beginning of the test and finished the last race at Most. It was clear one bike was working better than the other, so we just investigated some fine tuning with each. We had some electronic items to try that maybe we’ll see in the next races and some we’ll see in the future. It’s a step-by-step programme. It’s hard to verify and get clear directions sometimes at a one-day test. I used an SCQ tyre at the end, so we worked on everything. I felt competitive with race tyres and quite competitive with the SCQ.”

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Source: WorldSBK.com