Superbike: Excellent free practice for Jonathan Rea

Positive day on the home circuit for the Pata Honda team, which with Jonathan Rea was the protagonist in both free practice sessions on Friday, also thanks to favorable weather, which allowed all the riders to run continuously.

The British driver set the best time of the morning, while in the afternoon session, in which warmer asphalt conditions allowed the riders to significantly lower their times, he finished second fastest, half a second behind Davide Giugliano.

His teammate Leon Haslam was in more difficulty, as also happened throughout the Aragon weekend: he set the tenth fastest time in both testing sessions, more than a second from the best time.

“It was a dry day in Assen, and it helped us because the forecast says that it will change tomorrow, it was good to get some good times today” - he said Jonathan Rhea– “We arrived here with the Aragon set up, but I suffered a bit due to a lack of feeling with the front and I felt the bike was quite strange. On engine braking we still need to make some progress: we will check the data this evening to see if the problem is caused by the electronics or the chassis, but for one day I think we can be quite satisfied. I hope the weather conditions remain stable for the weekend. We expect a lot of support as this is our home track so we will have to aim for the front row tomorrow, while also working on a good race set up."

“We started with a different strategy with the engine braking this morning because it was too inconsistent in Aragon, and we are still getting used to it” - he said Leon Haslam– “It doesn't work too badly, but when we put on a new tire I didn't feel perfectly comfortable. I'm not sure if this was the tire's fault or we just couldn't maximize what we had, so we still have some things to sort out. We've made some changes to the chassis, but maybe it interferes with what we're trying to get from the electronics. There's still a long way to go, but we're making progress."