IMOLA, Italy – The one-day official DWO test took place Monday at Imola’s Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in warm conditions under sunny skies. The eni FIM Superbike World Championship teams who decided to participate had plenty of time available to start their preparation for the fifth round of the season, scheduled for May 25 at Donington Park, as well as to continue with the development of their respective bikes.
At the end of the six hours, split between two sessions, Jonathan Rea (Pata Honda World Superbike) topped the timesheets courtesy of a 1:47.225 lap time set in the afternoon, ahead of Chaz Davies (Ducati Superbike Team) and Toni Elias (Red Devils Aprilia), all three within 0.158s of each other.
The quickest of the EVO riders was Niccolò Canepa (Althea Racing Team Ducati), clocking in 1:48.323.
The Pata Honda squad worked on fine tuning the package that proved to be extremely competitive during the weekend with Rea, while Leon Haslam significantly improved his lap times and narrowed the gap to his teammate.
After a difficult weekend, performance and results wise, the Voltcom Crescent Suzuki Team concentrated on evaluating new electronic strategies to sort out the engine braking issues that both Eugene Laverty and Alex Lowes experienced during the Italian weekend. Laverty also tried out new chassis setups, while Lowes tested a different swingarm with encouraging results and resultant lap-time improvements.
Davies, Davide Giugliano and the whole Ducati Superbike Team continued their effort on improving the overall setup for their 1199 Panigale R machines, following a race day at Imola of mixed fortunes for the two riders.
Works Aprilia rider Sylvain Guintoli evaluated new parts for his RSV4 Factory while teammate Marco Melandri put in a big number of laps to try and solve the problems encountered during his home event.
There were a new engine, swingarm and electronics for the MV Agusta RC – Yakhnich Motorsport Team and their sole WSBK rider Claudio Corti.
This test was also the chance to test the developmental compounds brought by Pirelli, the Official Tire Supplier of the eni FIM Superbike World Championship. Two new front tire solutions for both full-spec Superbikes and EVO machines, as well as two specifically developed rear compounds for each category, were made available to the teams.
Superbike Test Times
1.Jonathan Rea (Honda) 1:47.225 (165.723km/h)
2. Chaz Davies (Ducati) 1:47.310
3. Toni Elias (Aprilia) 1:47.383
4. Eugene Laverty (Suzuki) 1:47.550
5. Davide Giugliano (Ducati) 1:47.589
6. Alex Lowes (Suzuki) 1:47.628
7. Marco Melandri (Aprilia) 1:47.636
8. Sylvain Guintoli (Aprilia) 1:47.650
9. Leon Haslam (Honda) 1:47.722
10. Niccolo Canepa (Ducati) 1:48.323
11. Leon Camier (BMW) 1:48.439
12. Ayrton Badovini (Bimota) 1:48.671
13. Claudio Corti (MV Agusta) 1 :48.851
14. Lorenzo Savadori (Kawasaki) 1:49.467
15. Christian Iddon (Bimota) 1:49.820
16. Luca Scassa (Kawasaki) 1:49.948
17. Jeremy Guarnoni (Kawasaki) 1:50.516
18. Fabien Foret (Kawasaki) 1:50.801
19. Alessandro Andreozzi (Kawasaki) 1:50.815
20. Imre Toth (BMW) 1:51.086
21. Geoff May (EBR) 1:52.433
–From World SBK Press Office
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