Portimao Test Delivers Progres...

A two day private test at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve in Portugal, between 14-15 March, saw bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team riders Alex Lowes and Axel Bassani make more advances with the new bimota KB998 Rimini.

Weather conditions proved to be changeable at this test, with heavy overnight rains on day one leaving a wet track in the morning, delaying the on-track action until conditions improved around the 4.592km long circuit. Alex finished seventh fastest on day one and Axel was eighth quickest.

In a test session with almost every top WorldSBK team on show the second day of action was also affected by rains which arrived in the afternoon. Conditions dried out enough near the end for some more meaningful action to be completed, in what was once again a somewhat complicated test session for all involved.

On the second day Alex proved to be third fastest overall, thanks to a best lap of 1’40.359. Axel was the tenth fastest rider setting a 1’41.049 on his WorldSBK-spec bimota KB998 Rimini on the final day.

Lowes concentrated on the front end of his machine, finding some improvements. Bassani worked on trying to improve his overall feeling at a circuit which is very different in design from the host venue of the first round of the year, Phillip Island.

The next track action for the BbKRT squad will one more take place at Portimao, when the second round of the 2025 WorldSBK season will be held between 28-30 March.

Alex Lowes, stated: “I felt good on the bike. I think these two days are probably the best I have felt so far on the bimota, and this is normal because we are improving and learning all the time. It was just a little bit of a shame about the weather, because we are still testing items rather than focusing on track-specific settings. I wanted to do a long run and we had quite a few things on the schedule, but we can’t change the weather. The guys did a fantastic job and we are slowly improving. We concentrated on the front of the bike and had some geometry settings to try that we have not been able to explore during the winter. But we only managed to get about 35-40 laps in on the final day because of the weather. In general, it has been an enjoyable test.”

Axel Bassani, stated: “It has been two strange days of testing because of the weather, and we had to do a lot of work in not a lot of hours. We tried to check all the items we wanted to try so it is has been quite intense. I finished the test not with a really good feeling so I am not sure how the Portimao race weekend will go. We need to work before then and I hope to be better during the weekend of the next race.”

Pere Riba, Crew Chief for Alex Lowes, stated: “Almost everybody was here at this two day test, which is a good thing because you can make comparisons with all your competitors, manufacturers and riders. Again it has been quite difficult with the weather. There was some rain each day. This means that over two days we did about six or seven hours in the dry. It was better than nothing and it ended up quite positive. Alex was enjoying it and I think at the end of the second day he finished third overall. We did not use soft tyres because in Portimao we cannot use an SCQ during the race weekend. We did our lap times with a race tyre, which is also positive. The best thing is that we had more time to test some items, which were planned after Australia and the winter tests. With this bike we still have a lot of things to do but we will do them step-by-step. Alex felt that we made a good improvement in a couple of areas, which is good, but of course this has to be confirmed in the race weekend. We have a starting point for the Portimao race weekend.”

Marcel Duinker, Crew Chief for Axel Bassani, stated: “You can do a lot of good work in the winter tests but you have to face your competition in a race to really understand where you are. We came back from the opening round at Phillip Island with a lot of information and experience so this Portimao test was really important for us. Our track time was reduced a lot, maybe 75% or more because of the weather conditions, so we picked the biggest priorities of our test programme. This meant that we were not really focused on finding the best race set-up or fine tuning, because the conditions during race weekend can be completely different. We really concentrated on improving our bike. We mainly improved in the areas of suspension and we didn’t use a softer tyre to make a lap time. We really focused on how to extract the most potential from a race tyre. Even if we only had around four hours of efficient test time, we ticked the most important items off the list. We can be confident for Portimao.”