Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1530089
Bimota Out Front in Jerez Test T he Bimota by Kawasaki Rac- ing Team (BbKRT) pairing of Alex Lowes and Axel Bas- sani ended up on top of the timesheets at what was a highly cosmopolitan two days of track action on November 26-27. As well as the BbKRT riders, there were also official WorldSBK entries from Pata Prometeon Yamaha, the newly official Kawa - saki WorldSBK Team (formerly Puccetti Racing), Marc VDS Ducati and BMW's official Endur- ance World Championship (if not WorldSBK) squad. And that was just the global production-derived entries. Honda UK was also there with both Superbike and Supersport machines, while WorldSSP ma - chines and some staff from MIE Honda, Renzi Corse Ducati, and the now Ducati-equipped WRP team were also on site with their WorldSSP kit. Adding to the exotic nature of the pre-winter test was the Honda MotoGP test team, with four riders in all, including new tester Aleix Espargaro, plus Luca Marini, Johan Zarco and Joan Mir. Bizarrely, Honda did not give any information about their ac - tivities at all, even to the point of not saying which rider set which lap time. Their transponders were given in just code numbers, with that number having no cor- relation to the numbers on the bikes or giving any clue to the riders' identities. Espargaro and Marini rode on day one only, the others on day two. Espargaro was identified by some as the fastest of the four with a 1:38.590. There were two Moto2 squads out on track as well. The Ajo Motorsport KTM squad ran new rider Colin Veijer, and the Klint Forward squad was testing its latest all-welded chassis along - side its two earlier prototypes— one with a bolted-together chas- sis and another previous in an all-welded stage of development. Alex Lowes was fastest of all, despite only using one Q tire, finishing with a 1:38.355, just three-thousandths of a second up on teammate Bassani. "I spent a lot of years on the Kawasaki, so there were two main targets for me," said Lowes about the single day he had in Jerez. "To be on the bike a bit more and understand how to ride the bike in the best way. This is something I need to think about during the winter break. It was important to see if I have to change my style a bit. We did a long run and tried to work on used tires to get a feeling with the bike. I started to work a bit on my confidence with the front. I had a little crash in turn six, pushing the front to understand it a bit more. We used one quali - fying tire only, and we made a good step with that. Even if that was not our main target, it was nice to be fast." The new Bimota, called a KB998, appears to have adjust- able (or at least movable) wing- lets, as still photographs show the winglets in subtly different positions/angles at different places around the track. The WorldSBK team is not speaking about any tech aspects of the new bike just yet—even though the road-bike version was un - veiled to the public at the EICMA show in Milan recently. WIND IN THE P30 Alex Lowes has proven the new Bimota is well and truly on the pace.