The bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team’s (BbKRT) first in season test will take place this weekend after the team has had a chance to regroup after the opening round at Philip Island in Australia. Testing will commence at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve in southern Portugal this coming weekend as Kawasaki attempts to put their name back in contention in the top 5 of the World Superbike paddock.
Despite mid pack finishes in the final race of Australia Round weekend Kawasaki feels they are making strides in a positive direction.
Words From the Riders
Alex Lowes, stated: “Firstly, I’m really excited to get back on the bimota KB998 Rimini. It was good to get the first round out the way recently and understand a bit more about where we have to improve. Obviously, it’s a new project and we have a lot of work to do, so let’s hope the weather plays ball and we can get some good dry laps in to explore the WorldSBK-spec KB998 a bit further! Portimao is a different challenge to Phillip Island I am hoping to improve my front end confidence on the bike to be more aggressive under braking. That should allow me to race with the other bikes a bit more easily. This is my main focus for this Portimao test, and to enjoy being back with my Team 22 colleagues.”
Axel Bassani, stated: “We will have two days of testing at Portimao soon. It will be a really important test because soon after we will have a race weekend there. We have to try to find our best race setup. For sure that not be easy as Portimao is a very difficult track, but we have already had one day of testing there and we will not be starting this next test from zero. This is very important because all the tracks will be new for us when we go to race.
Bassani Continued
We will have some new things to try but not a lot of new items. We have to improve in a lot of points, especially on the rear for me. After Phillip Island we realized that the base is not bad because we were really near to the first positions. We know that one of our issues is the speed on the straight, so we have to focus a lot where we can improve and not think too much about that. We will try in some more areas to be near to the first riders.”
Words From Management
Guim Roda, BbKRT Team Manager, stated: “After the opening round in Australia we now come back to Europe to continue the WorldSBK show. Australia was the first experience with the bimota KB998 Rimini in a real race situation, and we saw many areas to improve in. Many things were new in that race weekend for us, yet I think we managed it quite well. Now, in this Portimao Test, we’ll try to continue ‘polishing’ the areas that we detected we must improve in. I think we will really need to complete three rounds to define the direction of work for bike development, so let’s continue doing that in the Portimao test and then race weekend. We will see, but be sure that the best is yet to come.”