Jonathan Rea under lap record as 2019 WorldSBK season comes to an end

Jonathan Rea ended the 2019 WorldSBK season as he spent much of it by topping the timesheets on the very final day of track action during testing at Jerez.

The Ulsterman, who wrapped up his fifth WorldSBK title for Kawasaki this year, was untroubled as he put a full 0.8s between himself and the opposition with a 1m 38.397secs lap time that came in under Alvaro Bauista’s lap record.

Ten Kate’s Loris Baz turned in the second fastest lap to come out as the best-placed Yamaha rider ahead of Michael van der Mark on the factory R1, followed by Alex Lowes and rookie Scott Redding, the Briton continuing to find his limit on the WorldSBK-spec Ducati Panigale V4 R.

Tom Sykes headed up the BMW challenge in sixth, ahead of Toprak Razgatlioglu, Yamaha test rider Niccolo Canepa, Chaz Davies and Eugene Laverty.

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The result is relatively significant for Rea given he was largely out-performed by Ducati and Yamaha during this year’s race weekend. Though testing is of course only testing, the fact Rea is straight back up to speed around a circuit that doesn’t quite suit the otherwise versatile ZX-10RR suggests the all-conquering manufacturer has already found a good way of working at this early stage.

Yamaha, meanwhile, will take plenty of encouragement from the performance of its new R1 out of the box. Though more of an evolution of its well-proven package – unlike the more radical new offerings from Ducati and Honda – Yamaha has strength in numbers this year, with Baz in particular showing well given single lap pace is what often let him down on his return to action.

Elsewhere, Redding found the going at Jerez somewhat tougher than he did at Aragon – where the Ducati’s sheer grunt counts for more – but was still competitive with surely much more to come from the Briton.

BMW was there or thereabouts but came into this test on the back foot having skipped Aragon. All that remains to be see is how Honda fare when they join the fray at the start of next year.

The Japanese manufacturer opted to avoid direct comparisons as it dials in the new CBR10000RR-R by testing privately at Aragon, but all eyes will be on Alvaro Bautista and Leon Haslam when testing resumes in Spain in January ahead of February’s opener at Phillip Island.

2019 WorldSBK Jerez Test Results – Day 2