WSBK – WSBK tests in Jerez: Lowes and Rea neck to neck – Lowes and Rea lead in final tests

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WSBK trials in Jerez: Lowes and Rea neck to neck

WSBK - WSBK tests in Jerez: Lowes and Rea neck to neck - Lowes and Rea lead in final tests

The World Superbike riders took part last week in Jerez in the final tests of 2014. Alex Lowes and his Suzuki finished in style with the best time, but they are followed – very – closely by Jonathan Rea and his Kawasaki…

Lowes and Rea lead the latest tests

If Leon Haslam, Michel Fabrizio, Nico Terol and Matteo Baiocco started their end of year holidays on Tuesday evening (read), a good part of the 2015 World Superbike field, also present on the Jerez circuit, continued to roll – on dry Wednesday, wet or "drying" the next two days – to prepare for the new season.

With the 2015 WSBK World Championship regulations becoming more restrictive in terms of motorization (read), the teams largely focused on this point during these final 2014 tests … Winner – a little surprised, it must be admitted – of this last / first confrontation: Suzuki and its good old GSX-R !

Thanks to his time of, Alex Lowes left Spain with the best time of the week. Proud and delighted with the performance of his young foal, team manager Paul Denning also congratulates his engine manufacturers…

"Overall, these four days of testing (from Monday to Thursday for Suz ‘, Editor’s note) result in significant success: the 2015 Yoshimura engine was a revelation and allows us to take a leap forward from that of 2014", believes the big boss of the Suzuki Voltom Crescent team.

Disappointed not to have been able to follow his track record during these last tests of the year, Alex declares himself all the same "happy to end the year confident and optimistic again about the 2015 machine".

New regulations, new leaders

Very fast from his first World Superbike outings last year (read in particular), the 2013 English Superbike champion will be one to watch closely during the opening round of at Phillip Island..

The Australian track – wide and undulating, like Jerez – is particularly suited to Les Gex. Mister Lowes could therefore mark the spirits at the end of February in Australia, as well as big points. Provided of course not … The n ° 22 only made three laps Thursday in the wet. It is more careful !

Second best time at eight thousandths of a second for the Suzuki, Jonathan Rea is already pushing hard with the Greens! First fitted to the factory Kawasaki in Aragon the previous week, "JR" continues its meticulous and efficient adaptation work..

"Here we continued to try many different pieces", specifies its chief mechanic, Pere Riba."It rained this week, but we enjoyed a day and a half of dry weather, which allowed us to follow our development schedule.".

Although the Spanish circuit is "more a chassis circuit than an engine", the new Rea / Riba duo was able to work on a major point of the new regulations:"the gearbox, because next year we will only be entitled to one selection of gears", against two or three last season (read).

A tenth of a second slower than Tom Sykes in Aragon, Johnny reversed the situation in Jerez: the n ° 65 (third in the 2014 championship on Honda) precedes his teammate at n ° 66 (Tom Sykes, second in the WSBK 2014) by 0 , 1 second !

The 2013 world champion is not destabilized, however. "I unfortunately got sick on Tuesday and it didn’t help us"Says Mister Sykes who has however"did a lot of laps in the dry (Wednesday, Editor’s note) and could understand where to progress in the future".

The wise old Ninja – Tom is about to return to battle on his Kawa for the sixth year in a row! – is above all delighted to have made progress in the wet: "it was the first time that I could fly the ZX-10R as I wanted in these conditions".

Stealthy and fast Giugliano in the wet

"Our setting is obviously not yet perfect", warns the 2014 runner-up,"but we are going in the right direction because I had never been so fast in the wet on this track". The former" Number One "is setting off again with the best official time achieved on wet tires.

Unofficially, however, Davide Giugliano would have turned even faster than Sykes in the rain. According to the official Ducati team, which had deliberately chosen to run its factory bikes without a transponder, the Italian n ° 34 would have managed to go below 1’52.

Arrived Wednesday with the sun, Davide concentrated on the electronics of the 1199 Panigale R and was not bothered by the heavy showers, on the contrary: "the two rainy days (Thursday and Friday, Editor’s note) allowed us to approach things calmly and test almost everything".

"Riding in the wet was good exercise", continues Giugliano whose main mission in 2015 will be precisely to temper his enthusiasm and limit the number of crashes during the race:"it was our first experience in a rain configuration with the 2015 bike and everything went well".

On the other side of the box, Chaz Davies was much slower in the wet (two seconds slower according to the team’s times). But the Welsh pilot finds other reasons for satisfaction, "in particular about the anti-wheelie which works very well now".

On his official Facebook page, "Chazie" evoked his "25 laps done with a wet tire on a drying track, it might not have been fast but it was damn fun! I felt more like a flat-tracker than a speed pilot".

Two days earlier (so Wednesday) Davies considered having "carried out an interesting first day of testing, in the dry, by improving the rear grip"and"collected important information to use during the winter break". Bologna engineers are preparing to spend a studious end-of-year vacation !

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