‘Pluses and minuses’ as Rea gives new Kawasaki ZX-10RR a powerful debut in Jerez

Jonathan Rea was playing down the eye-catching turn of pace for the brand-new Kawasaki ZX-10RR after going immediately quickest in WorldSBK testing at Jerez just hours after it made its world premiere bow.

On the second day of the Spanish trial, all eyes were on Kawasaki as it pulled back the covers on the new ZX-10RR, a machine that has been kept largely under wraps up until this point and isn’t due to receive its formal unveiling in roadgoing trim until next week.

As such, the finer details of the machine are being held back until then (Monday 23 November) but the unveiling - decked in Kawasaki’s traditional black ‘snowflake’ testing livery - shows a fresh, sharply-designed front-end fairing re-design which is intended to improve aerodynamics and front-end stability.

Retaining the same inline four cylinder engine configuration, it is expected the ZX-10RR will boast 200bhp+ as a direct response to the Ducati Panigale V4 R and Honda CBR1000RR-R, as well as the incoming BMW M 1000 RR that wasn’t present at the test.

Getting right up to speed immediately, Rea sent out a warning to his rivals by going quickest with a 1m 38.324secs, just a tenth off the outright Jerez lap record.

A result that will no doubt pique the interest of rivals who may have hoped the introduction of a new model might serve to stutter Rea’s attempts to extend his record six WorldSBK titles, the man himself was nonetheless giving relatively little away.

“We started to work with some items for 2021, part of the test plan KHI sent us. Like always we were collecting information and tried many things – a different front fairing to give our feedback to Kawasaki, engine feeling, front fork, some brake items and a front tyre for Pirelli. 

“We did quite a lot of work and I set a lot of laps today with an old tyre. I have not been super-fast with a fresh tyre but the more laps I did on a tyre the faster I got. That is a good problem to have! 

“There were pluses and minuses and we have a lot of information to go back now and assess everything before we return to the track and go further at Motorland next week.”