Rea At Near Track Best Pace at Jerez, Ellison fifth

A quick lap, one of many from Jonathan Rea (KRT), saw him edge away from the chasing pack once again at Jerez on the second day of testing. His 1’40.139 was done on a race tyre but was tantalisingly close to the absolute WSBK track best of 1’40.292 set by his team-mate Tom Sykes last year.

Rea made a collection of 1’40.6 laps overall while Sykes had most of his best in the 1’40.7 bracket.

All but the slowest two riders improved on their day one best, but Sykes had a highside crash that stopped his day early, losing the back end exiting turn three. He was still second fastest today with a 1’40.508.

German rookie Markus Reiterberger (Althea Racing BMW) posted a strong 1’40.531 on fresh tyres as he stopped looking for race pace for a time and went for it in the middle of the day. He went back to working on race performance which is causing his some issues at this early stage of what has been a brilliant appearance so far.

The expected day two top four included Jordi Torres (Althea Racing BMW) as he got used to the S1000RR inline four, as he was half a second from his new team-mate. His main comment after riding the BMW is that the chassis is wide in terms of being able to move around freely and that the bike picks itself up on an opening throttle.

BSB rider James Ellison posted a time he said was better than he had ever made in MotoGP at Jerez, as he went fifth fastest on his 2016 spec Kawasaki, as yet with a completely stock motor. He was just ahead of the rapid WSS machine of Kenan Sofuoglu. Using WP suspension on his Kawasaki, the four-time champion went even faster than the circuit best mark with his 1’43.118 lap.

The Superstock BMW Althea machine of Raffaele De Rosa took him seventh, one up on Puccetti Kawasaki’s new Superstock rider, Toprak Razgatlioglu, on a very stock Ninja ZX-10R. Sofuoglu also put in one lap on the Superstock bike, just for fun.

Jeremy Guarnoni rode his Pedercini Kawasaki Superstock bike to ninth, as BSB runner and Ellison’s team-mate Peter Hickman was tenth.

New WSS star and former Moto2 rider Randy Krummenacher (Puccetti Kawasaki WSS) was only 0.6 seconds from his new team-mate and four time champion Sofuoglu, the 11^th fastest rider of the 16 who ran transponders.

Marco Melandri (MV Agusta WSBK finished his two day test having made improvements to the front end the electronics, in a test that may lead to more. He did not run a transponder and will be replaced by regular team rider Leon Camier on Thursday and Friday at these tests.

Tuesday Test Times

1 65 Jonathan REA GBR KAWASAKI PROVEC KAWASAKI 76 75 1:40.139 —- —- 277,6

2 66 Tom SYKES GBR KAWASAKI PROVEC KAWASAKI 65 28 1:40.508 0.369 0.369 278,4

3 21 Markus REITEMBERGER GER ALTHEA RACING BMW 58 28 1:40.531 0.392 0.023 274,8

4 81 Jordi TORRES ESP ALTHEA RACING BMW 79 62 1:41.002 0.863 0.471 270,7

5 77 James ELLISON GBR GBMOTO RACING KAWASAKI 85 33 1:41.948 1.809 0.946 268,0

6 54 Kenan SOFUOGLU TUR TEAM PUCCETTI KAWASAKI 74 35 1:43.009 2.870 1.061 247,7

7 35 Raffaele DE ROSA ITA ALTHEA RACING BMW 53 35 1:43.040 2.901 0.031 264,7

8 154 Toprak RAZGATLIOGLU TUR TEAM PUCCETTI KAWASAKI 60 58 1:43.414 3.275 0.374 266,0

9 11 Jeremy GUARNONI FRA TEAM PEDERCINI KAWASAKI 46 44 1:43.517 3.378 0.103 259,6

10 60 Peter HICKMAN GBR GBMOTO RACING KAWASAKI 51 51 1:43.542 3.403 0.025 267,3

11 4 Randy KRUMMENACHER SUI TEAM PUCCETTI KAWASAKI 57 43 1:43.639 3.500 0.097 251,2

12 23 Chris PONSSON FRA TEAM PEDERCINI KAWASAKI 62 34 1:44.571 4.432 0.932 261,5

13 87 Lorenzo ZANETTI ITA MV AGUSTA MV AGUSTA 47 46 1:44.845 4.706 0.274 247,1

14 55 Ilya MIHALCHIK RUS DS JUNIOR TEAM KAWASAKI 51 31 1:45.120 4.981 0.275 242,2

15 155 Massimo ROCCOLI ITA MV AGUSTA MV AGUSTA 42 11 1:45.177 5.038 0.057 244,9

16 16 Jules CLUZEL FRA MV AGUSTA MV AGUSTA 37 35 1:46.085 5.946 0.908 247,1