Rea dominates Portimao WSBK testing
Reigning champion Jonathan Rea dominated throughout the two days of World Superbike pre-season testing at Portimao, finishing with nearly a one-second lead over Alex Lowes.
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Rea was comfortably fastest on both days, as the Kawasaki rider already beat Yamaha's Lowes by four tenths with a 1m42.195s on Day 1.
All 14 riders in attendance were able to improve on their times on Day 2, with Rea going over a second faster, and ending the test with a 1m40.855s, which he set about 15 minutes before the end of the session.
Lowes' improvement from Day 1 to 2 was smaller, which led to the gap to Rea increasing to 0.959s.
He still took second as he and Rea continued to lock out every top two of 2019 pre-season testing as they also dominated at Jerez.
Alvaro Bautista was third on both days, narrowly losing out to Lowes. He was comfortably the fastest Ducati during the test by setting a 1m41.9s as his teammate Chaz Davies could only manage a 1m43.3s and Michael Ruben Rinaldi and Eugene Laverty were even slower.
Rea's and Lowes' teammates Leon Haslam and Michael van der Mark ended the test fourth and fifth respectively, closely followed by BMW's Tom Sykes.
Sykes, whose new team BMW revealed its 2019 livery earlier in the day, was 1.391s off the pace.
GRT Yamaha duo Sandro Cortese and Marco Melandri were seventh and eighth, the former making a significant 1.4s improvement between the two days.
Toprak Razgatlioglu was a promising fourth on Day 1 but settled for ninth with Markus Reiterberger bringing the second BMW to 10th.
Ducati trio Davies, Rinaldi and Laverty were all outside of the top 10, only beating Alessandro Delbianco.
Apart from Althea Honda duo Leon Camier and Ryuichi Kiyonari, who focus on a testing programme in Asia, Leandro Mercado and Jordi Torres also missed the test.
Testing results
Pos. | Rider | Team | Day 1 | Day 2 |
1 | Jonathan Rea | Kawasaki | 1:42.195 | 1:40.855 |
2 | Alex Lowes | Pata Yamaha | 1:42.614 | 1:41.814 |
3 | Alvaro Bautista | Ducati | 1:42.682 | 1:41.934 |
4 | Leon Haslam | Kawasaki | 1:42.820 | 1:42.144 |
5 | Michael van der Mark | Pata Yamaha | 1:42.872 | 1:42.191 |
6 | Tom Sykes | BMW | 1:42.808 | 1:42.246 |
7 | Sandro Cortese | GRT Yamaha | 1:43.847 | 1:42.469 |
8 | Marco Melandri | GRT Yamaha | 1:43.033 | 1:42.507 |
9 | Toprak Razgatlioglu | Puccetti Kawasaki | 1:42.687 | 1:42.537 |
10 | Markus Reiterberger | BMW | 1:43.682 | 1:43.146 |
11 | Chaz Davies | Ducati | 1:43.702 | 1:43.361 |
12 | Michael Ruben Rinaldi | Barni Ducati | 1:44.663 | 1:43.834 |
13 | Eugene Laverty | GoEleven Ducati | 1:44.200 | 1:43.950 |
14 | Alessandro Delbianco | Althea Honda | 1:45.732 | 1:44.885 |
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