Rea wants to go racing

Champ looking forward to the season starting this weekend

With a new World Superbike season kicking off this weekend in Phillip Island, pre-season testing has brought mixed messages. In many senses it’s business as usual, with four-time World Champion Jonathan Rea setting a blistering pace in Jerez and Portimao but there’s also a new order waiting to be established as new teams, riders and firms look to make their mark.

At Jerez in January, Rea’s lap time of 1:39.160 was a frightening 1.5 seconds inside his own lap record. The ZX-10RR is the same model which debuted in 2016, albeit with updates including an engine putting out 600 more revs per minute than it did in 2018.

It’s a clever engineering response from Kawasaki, re-homologating their road bike in order to allow more power for the race machine in a direct kick at the organisers who pegged back its performance last season. Rea carried the pace into Portimao just days after Jerez, putting in a late run on qualifying tyres to end proceedings almost a second quicker than anybody else. A motocross incident, which left the World Champion with cuts to his face prior to testing, seemed a distant memory by the time he flew to Australia.

For the first time since joining the all-conquering Kawasaki squad at the start of 2015, Rea heads into the season with a new team-mate. Following a very public fallout last year, Tom Sykes headed to BMW which left a vacancy for Leon Haslam. Back in WSB after three seasons in British Superbikes where he narrowly missed the first two titles before claiming it in 2018, Haslam believes he will be competitive from the off as the season commences at Phillip Island, but admits his style must be altered for other, tighter circuits in order to carry less corner speed and improve his exits. Part of the issue stems from the fact that he is returning to a championship full of electronic aids such as traction control and anti-wheelie, all of which are outlawed in BSB.