Editorial Note: Some teams scheduled to participate in the test include Aruba.it Racing Ducati, Barni Spark Racing Team Ducati, Bonovo Action BMW, Kawasaki Racing Team, Motocorsa Racing Ducati, ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team, Team GoEleven Ducati, and Team HRC Honda.
Aragon Test Precedes Season Restart
As the long summer break in WorldSBK race action approaches its conclusion there will be a short test session for the official Kawasaki FIM Superbike World Championship team, at Motorland Aragon, between 29-30 August.
With just one day remaining from their mandated limit of ten days of testing, Rea and Lowes will only ride on the final day of the test, Wednesday 30 August.
Lowes’s regular rider coach and team development rider since 2022, Florian Marino, will test the official Ninja ZX-10RR on Tuesday 29 August. He also has great experience in the WorldSBK paddock and the EWC series in his own right.
Florian will be joined on track by MTM Kawasaki WorldSSP rider, Adrian Huertas, as a recognition of winning the WorldSSP300 championship on a Kawasaki in 2021 and his increasingly strong performances since he made the jump to WorldSSP racing in 2022.
Iberia in general has been suffering from heatwaves recently, but despite the tough conditions the KRT squad will look forward to some very hot track and ambient conditions to close-in on the thus-far elusive optimum settings for exceedingly high temperature races.
Motorland Aragon features a 5.077km long WorldSBK track layout, but it is also an extensive motorsport and testing facility in general. It has hosted several WorldSBK rounds in recent years and will do so again in 2023 between 22-24 September. It was also the venue of a recent KRT test session, held in late June.
The next round of the 2023 WorldSBK championship itself takes place at another regular WorldSBK circuit, Magny Cours in France, between 8-10 September.
Jonathan Rea, stated: “This Aragon test comes at a really valuable time because with Magny Cours fast approaching after a long summer break, it’s always beneficial to get back into the swing of things and into the flow of riding my ZX-10RR. I will be trying to get the rhythm back but also have one eye on the Motorland race weekend that comes soon after the Magny Cours race. So it’s all about trying to build into this last part of the season and being strong. We’ll continue testing some items that we’ve previously tried. And with one day left on my testing allocation we only have one day to use. We expect hot weather, which is also good to test in to try to further improve our bike settings. We will just keep working. The next three rounds are going to come in quick succession, so it’s important to hit the ground running. We’ll see what the engineers from KMC have for us and we will get stuck into the test.”
Alex Lowes, stated: “There will be some stuff for 2024 that we are testing, just some ideas. So that will take half a day because we have only one full day of testing left. The other half of that day will be just getting back up to speed and trying a couple of things on the rear of the bike, to try to improve edge grip. Marcel my crew chief has a couple of ideas and I’ve been speaking quite a lot with him about a plan to improve that. Hopefully the conditions will be hot. That’s the target and I am looking forward to getting back into action. It was not the best round in Autodrom Most for me recently, but we’ve got four rounds left. I want to get back on the podiums to finish the year strongly. There are some good tracks coming up for me and the Kawasaki. We haven’t met our goals at the start of this year, so a good end to this year will be what’s needed to set us up for next year as well. We have one eye on 2024, one eye on the final four rounds of this season and a couple of ideas that Marcel has to improve things. So, it’s gonna be a busy day of testing as we only have one day left. It’s gonna be nice to get back out on the bike before Magny Cours.”
Guim Roda, KRT Team Manager, stated: “Now we go back to work after the Autodrom Most race weekend. This test will be a good chance to prepare for Magny Cours and the last rounds of the year, and at the same time we will introduce new ideas to improve the bike for the 2024 season. Unfortunately, in the year we needed them the most, we only can test for 10 days. We have already used nine days, so even though we will be at the track for two days, Jonathan and Alex will test only day each. We’ll work with Florian Marino on the first day, and we’ll give Adrian Huertas the opportunity to test the WorldSBK bike, to see his abilities. We promised him in Most if he made the WorldSSP podium we would give him the chance to test. He could not achieve a podium, but finally we considered he deserved the chance, so let’s see how he manages it.”
