Gordon Ritchie | 20th November 2020
Day two
With the first visible signs of a new style appearing on the second and final day of the WorldSBK testing in Jerez, the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10RR set the fastest lap ever with a 1: 38.324 – just outside the 1’38.247 track, the best of the race weekend 2020.
In a flurry of late night activity, qualifying tires cut lap times when time was up.
Jonathan Rea and the new Kawasaki ZX-10RR are ahead of the pack on the last day in Jerez.
At the beginning of the last day (according to the team on an X-tire) Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha) rode the test bike known as “YMRE” for the third best time of all, behind only Rea and the HRC MotoGP test rider Stefan Bradl made him second in the WorldSBK ranking.
Alex Lowes (KRT), who ran between a 2020 body bike and a new fairing bike today, was the third fastest WorldSBK rider and again set his best pace late in the finale. He was 0.562 seconds behind his teammate Rea.
The fastest rider on the opening day, Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yamaha) ended up being the fourth best superbike rider as he adapts to a more modern machine than his 2019 motorcycle. He also drove a quick time on the YMRE development bike in the afternoon, but not quite as fast as Razgatlioglu.
Razgatlioglu put it on his nose again for the second.
Back on his current Pata Yamaha (with a different transponder number), Razgatlioglu was actually also the fifth fastest Superbike rider (and was classified as such in the live timing of the circuit), despite a T1 crash without injury. For the sake of clarity, we’ll consider him the 2nd fastest WorldSBK competitor, as he was still riding a development R1 superbike at the time.
Honda Leon Haslam, who continues to push his HRC, had a happier time on race tires than his teammate Alvaro Bautista. Haslam was fifth today and Bautista eighth – the latter 1.907 seconds after Rea’s best time. Both Fireblade drivers focused on back-to-back testing, trying to find real-world improvements with their existing package, as well as new material, especially after such a tough initial development in Covid-19.
There have already been some major changes to the WorldSBK line-up, most notably in this test of runaway WorldSSP World Champion Andrea Locatelli on the official Yamaha Pata team alongside Razgatlioglu in 2020. The Italian rider made a good jump on his R1at Jerez from day one to day two and finished sixth overall.
Lowes finished third on the Kawasaki.
One place behind Locatelli was the Independent Kawasaki Puccetti Racing Ninja of new WorldSBK rider Lucas Mahias, who was finally Locatelli’s closest rival in the 2020 WorldSSP fight.
With Bautista in eighth fastest, Kohta Nozane, another new WorldSBK rider, drove his GRT Yamaha in ninth and 1:40 places on the final day in Jerez, finishing right in front of former WorldSSP podium winner Isaac Vinales (Orelac Racing VerdNatura Kawasaki) . The last rider on the WorldSBK timesheet was Outdo TPR Kawasaki rider Loris Cresson.
Another test session for some of the top drivers, but not all, will be held at Motorland Aragon next week between November 25th and 26th.
2020 Jerez WorldSBK Test Final Times
| 1 | Jonathan Rea | (Kaw) | 1: 38.324 |
| 2 | Earth Razgatlioglu | (Sweet potato) | 1: 38.855 |
| 3 | Alex Lowes | (Kaw) | 1: 38.887 |
| 4th | Garrett Gerloff | (Sweet potato) | 1: 39.172 |
| 5 | Leon Haslam | (They) | 1: 39.852 |
day one
After a first day of WorldSBK tests in real preparation for the 2021 season, Garret Gerloff (GRT Yamaha) led the small but high-quality field of existing riders and some newcomers with a best lap of 1: 39.571. That put him well 0.384 seconds ahead of six-time champion Jonathan Rea (KRT), who was the only other WorldSBK rider below the 1:40 mark.
Garrett Gerloff shot to the top on the first day of the final WorldSBK test in Jerez.
In these tests, Gerloff was a little more than a second slower than the only MotoGP motorcycle that Stefan Bradl rode. The German driver was the fastest of all on the first day with a 1: 38.562 in a Honda HRC test team.
Gerloff’s latest step forward comes shortly after campaigning for none other than MotoGP mega-star Valentino Rossi for a day in Valencia, having already achieved three podiums in his 2020 WorldSBK rookie season.
The first official Yamaha WorldSBK motorcycle today was the third to be ridden by Toprak Razgatlioglu and the second official Kawasaki was brought in fourth by Alex Lowes. Both KRT riders had some issues that stopped their progress in the morning but picked up speed to end up closer to the top than the bottom of the timesheets.
Leon Haslam, stripped of track time in his first year of real racing action on the latest Fireblade, stayed out with his HRC Honda until the end of the day, finishing fifth. Like his teammate Haslam, Bautista tried many things in a row that the intense racing calendar did not allow during the racing season. He was sixth.
Behind the more experienced WorldSBK riders, three WorldSBK newbies tried against their peer group in 2021. Andrea Locatelli (Pata Yamaha) was the seventh-best superbiker – almost exactly one second after Gerloff’s leading non-MotoGP time -, Lucas Mahias (Puccetti Kawasaki) eighth and Isaac Vinales ninth.
The new GRT Yamaha rider for 2021, Kohta Nozane (GRT) and Loris Cresson (Outdo TPR Kawasaki) completed the 11 WorldSBK riders on the track today – despite Cresson having a quick crash in T1.
The second day of the SMS campaign starts on Wednesday the 18th in Jerez.
Test Results for Jerez WorldSBK 2020 – Day One
MotoGP
Stefan Bradl (HRC Test Team) 1: 38.696
WorldSBK
| 1 | Garrett Gerloff | (Sweet potato) | 1: 39.571 |
| 2 | Jonathan Rea | (Kaw) | 1: 39.995 |
| 3 | Earth Razgatlioglu | (Sweet potato) | 1: 40.055 |
| 4th | Alex Lowes | (Kaw) | 1: 40.116 |
| 5 | Leon Haslam | (They) | 1: 40.294 |
More WorldSBK news and results can be found here