Jonathan Rea leads WorldSBK Jerez test as Scott Redding suffers crash

Jonathan Rea picked up from where he left from the end of the 2019 WorldSBK Championship season as he topped the timesheets for Kawasaki on day one of a two-day test at Jerez.

A day after the MotoGP field completed its very final track running of the 2019 season, WorldSBK will follow suit at the same circuit with two days of running involving 13 of the 20 riders so far confirmed to next year’s grid.

Up top it was a familiar sight as Rea pumped in a 1m 39.207secs lap to lead the way on the 2020 evolution of the venerable Kawasaki ZX-10RR. However, he was run very closely by the Pata Yamaha WorldSBK team, who got the chance to stretch the ‘legs’ of the new Yamaha R1 with some encouraging results.

A fast lap in the final hour allowed new signing Toprak Razgatlioglu to surge up to second fastest, only 0.019s adrift of his former Kawasaki stablemate, while Michael van der Mark – a winner at Jerez earlier in the year – followed him up in third place.

Alex Lowes showed solid gains as he works on improving his feeling with the Kawasaki to set the fourth fastest time, while Loris Baz made his first appearance of the off-season to shine with the fifth quickest lap.

After a successful start to life as a WorldSBK rider in Aragon, Scott Redding found the going somewhat tougher at the start of his second test after he lost time with a crash at turn five en route to the sixth on the leaderboard, ahead of Tom Sykes, who headed up BMW’s first appearance of the off-season in seventh position, and Chaz Davies, who spent the day working with Ohlins.

Yamaha test rider Niccolo Canepa made an appearance in ninth position, with new BMW signing Eugene Laverty rounding out the top ten.

Michele Pirro – deputising for the injured Leon Camier at BARNI Ducati – was 11^th fastest from Jerez debutant Garrett Gerloff in 12^th place, series returnee Xavi Fores, rookie Federico Caricasulo and another returnee in Lorenzo Savadori.

2019 WorldSBK Jerez test Results [Day 1 – 29 November]