Springtime in Catalunya delivered mostly good weather and useable track conditions for the KRT duo to work with. Only a ‘green’ track surface on day one and a delay to let the track surface dry out after overnight rains on the final day cut into the available track time for the full turn-out WorldSBK teams.
Lowes, winner of two races at the previous round in Australia, set about working on preparations for the forthcoming race weekend at Barcelona - Catalunya. Particular attention was paid to maintaining a strong tyre life over full race distance. Alex made a long run to evaluate tyre life on day two and set a high lap count despite having two small crashes on the final day.
Bassani continued to work on finding ever greater pace and consistency in what are still the early stages of his first season as an official Kawasaki rider. Axel also had one eye focused on the next round and he now hopes to find a greater single lap pace early on during race weekend to qualify well in Superpole.
With the latest test sessions complete the Barcelona - Catalunya round itself will take place between 22-24 March. It forms the second event of the new season and will be the first to be held in Europe after the opener took place in Australia last month.
Alex Lowes, stated: “It was busy here today and I think I did 80 laps. I worked a lot. I did a race simulation while trying to look after the tyres - especially the front tyre as this track seems to have quite low grip and that makes it critical on the front. I was happy with my consistency in the race run and it was certainly a lot better than last year, when we had similar track conditions. We are making steps forward but so is everybody else. Until we check the analysis of the data it is hard to really know where you are. I don’t think tenth today was our true position. We have all the information now for the race next week and I feel good.”
Axel Bassani, stated: “Like yesterday we found something near the end of the session. That’s good because finally we arrived with a good lap on the race tyre, better than the one we did using the SCQ qualifying tyre. It is important to start to understand what to do for the coming race weekend here. We need tests to improve our work and we did that here. We found some more confidence on the front but we also have to work on the rear during turning, as right now we are losing time in the long corners. Pirelli brought new front and rear tyres here and I liked the new front tyre. On the rear, I still have to make a choice.”
Pere Riba, Crew Chief for Alex Lowes, stated: “We had some items to test and we worked through them. We made some changes in the electronics and that was a little bit difficult yesterday. Today we tried to understand it more and collected all the info. This track is very different to the first round in Australia and the grip was not so good. Alex crashed a couple of times but in the end we collected good information. Now we will analyse everything and then see how we will prepare for the race weekend.”
Marcel Duinker, Crew Chief for Axel Bassani, stated: “During this test we evaluated some items. We also worked on tyre options and setting up the bike for race weekend. On the first morning we started out with some small issues and then this morning it was wet, so we ended up mainly using the two afternoons in this test. I am sure we made some forward steps. We evaluated the tyres properly and we are more than ready to start the Catalunya race weekend next Friday. We just need time to improve our general performance. Step-by-step we are getting closer to where we need to be.”
Tito Rabat (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) took part in the test on his KRT supplied Ninja ZX-10RR machine, ending up 18th fastest in the combined times.
2024 KRT Rider WorldSBK Statistics
Alex Lowes:
2024: Races: 3, Wins 2, Podiums 2, Superpoles 0
Career Race Wins: 4 (3 for Kawasaki)
Career Podiums: 36 (16 for Kawasaki)
Career Poles: 1 (0 for Kawasaki)
Axel Bassani:
2024: Races: 3, Wins 0, Podiums 0, Superpoles 0
Career Race Wins: 0 (0 for Kawasaki)
Career Podiums: 6 (0 for Kawasaki)
Career Poles: 0 (0 for Kawasaki)
8 x Riders’ Championships (Scott Russell 1993, Tom Sykes 2013, Jonathan Rea 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 & 2020), 1 x EVO Riders’ Championship (David Salom 2014)
6 x Manufacturers’ Championships (Ninja ZX-10R 2015 & 2016, Ninja ZX-10RR 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020)
5 x Teams’ Championships (KRT/Provec Racing 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 & 2019)
Kawasaki FIM Superbike World Championship Statistics
Total Kawasaki Race Wins: 180 – second overall
Total Kawasaki Podiums: 544 – second overall
Total Kawasaki Poles: 108 – second overall
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