Rea tops first day of Barcelona World Superbike test

Riding the new Kawasaki ZX-10RR that was unveiled in its 2021 livery on Tuesday, Rea set the fastest time of 1m40.793s with a little under half an hour to go of the eight hours of running.

That was over a second up on the existing WSBK lap record at the track, but with the caveat that the layout of the Turn 10 left-hand hairpin has been revised for 2021.

Ducati rider and last year's runner-up Scott Redding led during the morning with a benchmark of 1m41.198s, and that lap stood as the quickest until it was surpassed by Rea on a 1m41.180s with around an hour and 15 minutes left of the day.

GRT Yamaha rider Garrett Gerloff enjoyed a spell at the top of the times when he set a 1m41.147s with an hour to go, before improving to a 1m40.978s and then a 1m40.910s shortly after.

But Rea regained control of the leaderboard when he posted a 1m41.861s and then finally a 1m40.793s to end the first day of 2021 running featuring all five WSBK manufacturers on top.

Honda's Leon Haslam jumped to second inside the final 15 minutes, 0.107s off the pace of Rea and just 10 thousandths up on third-placed Gerloff.

Redding improved to a 1m40.962s late on to wind up fourth on the best of the Ducatis, while BMW's Tom Sykes incredibly made it five different bikes in the top five, 0.472s off the pace.

Toprak Razgatlioglu was sixth for the works Yamaha team ahead of Jonas Folger's satellite MGM Racing BMW - who recovered from a crash in the morning - and the second factory Ducati of Michael Ruben Rinaldi.

Completing the top 10 were Chaz Davies (Go Eleven Ducati) and Andrea Locatelli (Yamaha).

Alex Lowes, who recently recovered from a shoulder injury picked up earlier this year, was 1.173s off the pace of Kawasaki teammate Rea in 12th place, one spot behind Alvaro Bautista on the second Honda, who is recovering from a minor motocross accident.

Michael van der Mark was the slowest of the factory riders in 13th on his BMW, while ex-MotoGP racer Tito Rabat (Barni Ducati) was a low-key 16th.

A total of 20 riders took part in the first day of the test, with Lucas Mahias (Puccetti Kawasaki), Eugene Laverty (RC Squadra BMW) and Loris Cresson (Pedercini Kawasaki) all absent.

Testing continues with an additional eight hours of running on Thursday.

Day 1 testing times:

Pos.	No.	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	1	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki	1'40.793
2	91	Leon Haslam	Honda	1'40.900	0.107
3	31	Garrett Gerloff	Yamaha	1'40.910	0.117
4	45	Scott Redding	Ducati	1'40.962	0.169
5	66	Tom Sykes	BMW	1'41.265	0.472
6	54	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Yamaha	1'41.334	0.541
7	94	Jonas Folger	BMW	1'41.598	0.805
8	21	Michael Ruben Rinaldi	Ducati	1'41.748	0.955
9	7	Chaz Davies	Ducati	1'41.775	0.982
10	55	Andrea Locatelli	Yamaha	1'41.926	1.133
11	19	Alvaro Bautista	Honda	1'41.950	1.157
12	22	Alex Lowes	Kawasaki	1'41.966	1.173
13	60	Michael van der Mark	BMW	1'42.046	1.253
14	47	Axel Bassani	Ducati	1'42.677	1.884
15	3	Kohta Nozane	Yamaha	1'42.758	1.965
16	53	Tito Rabat	Ducati	1'42.819	2.026
17	32	Isaac Vinales	Kawasaki	1'42.923	2.130
18	23	Christophe Ponsson	Yamaha	1'44.400	3.607
19	36	Leandro Mercado	Honda	1'44.957	4.164
20	76	Samuele Cavalieri	Kawasaki	1'45.434	4.641