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At the end of Friday'ìs free practice, the tenth and eleventh place scored by the two Kawasaki riders are the result of precise work, carried out in order to be prepared for the race. Both Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes, given the particular conditions of Sepang right now, decided to sacrifice the flying lap to focus on set-up work, in order to understand how the tyres behave over distance. Something that is critical, consdering both the conditions of the new asphalt and the fact that lately the Ninja ZX-10R has caused the KRT riders a few worries in this regard.
"We've learned a lot today - explains Jonathan Rea - Because we're worked a lot on the bike, and also on the electronics, making some changes. Our constancy seems to be quite good, but a good flying lap was only possible on softer tyres."
The team's work focused on the performance of the harder tyre, the one which should hold up better in the final stages of the race: "We focused on the hard one because I think it would be a gamble to use the softer tyre on this new asphalt. We're very fast in the first split, but are losing in the second and third. Anyway, I'm not panicking, we just need to work to prepare for the race."
Tom Sykes repeats the same. The Huddersfield rider used these first two sesions to better understand the bike's behaviour: "I think we're better prepared for the race. Weìve worked to understand what type of tyre to use rather than going for the fast lap." commented Tom. "If we'd watched the clock" - he added - we'd probably have had more question marks for tomorrow's race."
