Jonathan Rea and Hiroshi Aoyoma completed their 2011 on-track activities today with a final testing session at the Losail circuit in Doha, Qatar. The Castrol Honda team spent three days working on Honda's CBR1000RR Fireblade, which will receive extensive updates before the 2012 season.
"We've got through a lot of work these three days and ended with two long runs today, which was pretty tough in the heat," Rea said. "We've tried heaps of stuff and, like the last couple of tests, we ended up running out of time. But it's still been really productive and I'm looking forward to starting the next test on my favourite combination of components because we weren't able to finish on that today. We've been making some quite big changes to the bike, just to feel the difference between the various set-ups and everyone has been working really well. It was good to be back at this circuit too; I like it here, and I'm really looking forward to getting back on the bike again in January."
Rea, who raced with Castrol Honda in 2011, was joined by his new teammate Aoyoma during the Doha test.
"It was a very interesting test and a good opportunity for me to meet my new team and spend some time getting used to the new bike and the tires," Aoyoma said. "We still have some work to make the bike more comfortable for me to ride so I was not able to push really hard. I don't know much about the bike yet and there is still a lot to discover, so I will continue to learn, little-by-little. But the test has been really good and I hope we'll get some new materials for the next time I ride the bike."
The Castrol Honda team's next session won't be until 2012. Rea, Aoyoma, and the rest of the team will head to Phillip Island in Australia for a private test at the end of January.
"We set ourselves a lot of goals for the development of the bike for next season and we have managed to tick a lot of boxes during this test, so we can start putting the 2012 bikes together now," said Ronald ten Kate, the team manager. "One of the other objectives we had was also to find a fast team-mate for Jonathan and we have definitely ticked that box too! Both riders were under the lap record here and it's been very hot, with track temperature above 50 degrees. Jonathan has worked on chassis parts for the 2012 machine and we introduced ride-by-wire electronics for the first time for on-throttle riding. Before we have only used it on corner entry, but now we have been working on corner exit, too. The results of this have been very positive and clear. Hiroshi has obviously been getting used to the machine and, because of his size and weight, we need to make some new parts to make him really comfortable on the bike. Despite these problems, we're still very satisfied with his times and looking forward to making further progress with both riders early next year."
