Reigning WorldSBK Champion Jonathan Rea will re-commence his 2017 winter test programme at Jerez tomorrow and is now in search of more power after already settling on a base chassis setup which allowed him to set blistering laptimes.

The Castletown resident has got three days in Spain followed by another three at Phillip Island before the first race kicks off Down Under, and will be working to better the already fast and consistent pace he found at Jerez before the winter test ban.

“We have almost completed our winter test programme at Jerez after the last test there. We can start 2017 with a base package that we are already satisfied with. We are now starting to put all the pieces of the jigsaw together so I can start to build a package looking toward the first round of the championship at Phillip Island,” said Rea.

“Jerez is a track that presents different challenges at different times of the year, depending on the temperature and grip levels from the track, so we will have to see what the track surface presents to us when we arrive there. The first test of 2017 is about getting up to speed, throwing away the winter cobwebs and starting to work with my teams again to built up to Phillip Island. We have six days of testing before the first race weekend, so we have enough time to prepare.

We have some new parts we are going to evaluate in the search for more power. After the last test we left Jerez very optimistic that we had done a good job both in lap times and consistency.”