Rea lays down marker at Portimao test

Jonathan Rea has sent out a warning shot to his World Superbike rivals with stunning lap times on the opening day of the Portimao pre-season test as he topped the timesheet by almost half a second from Tom Sykes.

Having shared top spot honours with Sykes during the two-day Jerez test, Rea has produced ominous pace at the Portuguese circuit as his speed continued to ramp up ahead of the 2018 World Superbike season where he’ll aim for an unprecedented fourth consecutive world title.

Jonathan Rea, World Superbike [Credit: Gold and Goose]
Jonathan Rea, World Superbike [Credit: Gold and Goose]
© Gold and Goose

Jonathan Rea has sent out a warning shot to his World Superbike rivals with stunning lap times on the opening day of the Portimao pre-season test as he topped the timesheet by almost half a second from Tom Sykes.

Having shared top spot honours with Sykes during the two-day Jerez test, Rea has produced ominous pace at the Portuguese circuit as his speed continued to ramp up ahead of the 2018 World Superbike season where he’ll aim for an unprecedented fourth consecutive world title.

Rea produced best lap of a 1m 41.475s – less than one tenth of a second off his Superpole time at Portimao back in September – despite track conditions being seasonably colder than his last visit to the southern Portuguese circuit.

The lap saw the triple World Superbike champion pull out 0.477s on Kawasaki team-mate Sykes, who suffered a nasty finger injury at the circuit last September, as the Japanese manufacturer showed the new rev limiter rule isn’t set to stop its front-running pace in 2018.

Pata Yamaha’s Michael van der Mark was the closest challenger to the Kawasaki domination in third place on the overall timesheet with a best lap of 1m 42.218s – a whopping 0.743s off Rea’s time – but it did put the Dutch rider ahead of Aruba.it Racing Ducati’s Marco Melandri and fellow factory Yamaha rider Alex Lowes.

Leon Camier continued to impress ahead of his debut season for Red Bull Honda by taking sixth place on the timesheet in front of Milwaukee Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty and factory Ducati rider Chaz Davies. Similarly, WSBK rookie Toprak Razgatlioglu also shone for Puccetti Kawasaki by taking ninth place on the timesheet but has tested for the Italian WSBK squad back in September.

Michael Rinaldi, who will contest the European rounds of the 2018 WSBK champoionship, completed the top ten of the runners on Sunday ahead of the likes of Xavi Fores (Barni Ducati), Loris Baz (Althea BMW) and Jordi Torres (MV Agusta).

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