Rea heads BSB in Spain

Jonathan Rea has taken the first day’s glory – unofficially anyway – in the major three-day BSB test ongoing in Almeria, Spain.

No official timings are available from the test, but with every team keeping track of their own times and closely observing their rivals an unofficial timing list can be drawn up.

And so far it sees Rea outpacing his HM Plant team-mate, reigning BSB champ Ryuichi Kiyonari.

In perfect conditions, Rea set a best time today of 1.36.1, 1.1s ahead of Kiyo and 1.2 ahead of Shakey Byrne and Leon Haslam who set a joint best of 1.37.3.

Stobart’s Byrne survived a scare when an oilway blanking plug blew out on his Fireblade and covered him in oil – as well as following rivals Chris Walker and Cal Crutchlow.

The only crash of the day was Michelin test team rider Oriol Fernandez who stacked his Yamaha R1 this morning. He was uninjured.

Kiyo was first out this morning, and spent the day finding a base set-up on the new 2007 HRC Blade.

The only problem so far has been a minor slipper clutch glitch – the same issue which saw Gregorio Lavilla’s only hiccup of the day.

It revealed itself on the Airwaves Ducati when the bike failed to start cleanly on the slave starter, and the team were quickly able to strip and repair the clutch.

The Airwaves team will test all-new Ohlins TTX36-07 shocks tomorrow, the same as Troy Bayliss gets in WSB.

At Rizla, times were modest with track debutant Crutchlow setting a best today of 1.38.7, and Walker 1.39.1.

But the pair spent nearly all day plodding round for sponsor photoshoots and doing low speed ride-bys for videos, so little can be read into their performance.

UNOFFICIAL TIMES:

1 Jonathan Rea 1.36.1
2 Ryuichi Kiyonari 1.37.2
3= Leon Haslam 1.37.3
3= Shane Byrne 1.37.3
5 Leon Camier 1.37.1
6 Gregorio Lavilla 1.37.7
7 Tom Sykes 1.38.4
8 Cal Crutchlow 1.38.7
9 Chris Walker 1.39.1
10 Ollie Bridewell 1.41.0
11 Tommy Bridewell 1.42.0