Kawasaki's Rea quickest as Aragon pre-season WSBK test ends

Having edged out Razgatlioglu by just 0.016s on the opening day of the running, Rea enjoyed a much bigger margin over his 2021 title rival on the last day of preparations ahead of this weekend's season opener at the Spanish venue.

The six-time WSBK champion set a time of 1m48.714s with just 10 minutes left on the clock on Tuesday, eclipsing Razgatlioglu's previous effort of 1m49.068s by over three tenths of a second.

Both Rea and Razgatlioglu managed to improve significantly over their respective best laps from the first day of the test, but neither could match last year's pole-setting pace as the temperature remained abnormally low at Motorland Aragon.

Alvaro Bautista once again emerged as the closest rival to last year's two title rivals, the Ducati returnee finishing fractionally behind the duo in third with a time of 1m49.094s.

Bautista led the first part of the day on a cold morning but couldn't keep up with Rea and Razgatlioglu in the remaining two 45-minute sessions, although he managed to close within 0.026s of the Turkish rider's time.

The independent contingent was led by Garrett Gerloff on the GRT Yamaha, the American rider posting a 1m49.235s to end up fourth in the combined order and less than half a second off Rea.

Loris Baz was the best-placed BMW rider for the second day in a row, his time of 1m49.383s from the second session putting him fifth overall on the MGM Bonovo M1000RR.

Andrea Locatelli was sixth on the second of the factory Yamahas, while Bautista's teammate Michael Ruben Rinaldi didn't finish far behind in seventh despite failing to improve on his afternoon time in the third session of the day.

The factory Hondas of Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge occupied positions eighth and ninth on the combined order, with Lecuona the last rider to break the 1m50s barrier with a time of 1m49.971s.

The top 10 was rounded out by Philipp Oettl, who has replaced Chaz Davies at the GoEleven Ducati squad this year.

New BMW recruit Scott Redding could only muster the 11th-quickest time, more than seven tenths off the pace of satellite rider Baz after suffering a crash in the second session.

Factory Kawasaki rider Alex Lowes also had a low-key day aboard the improved ZX-10RR that yielded 12th spot on the overall timesheets.

Baz's teammate Eugene Laverty was classified 13th ahead of Ilya Mikhalchik, who found nearly a second compared to Monday on the second works-run BMW.

Mikhalchik was deputising for the injured Michael van der Mark and will also be in action in this weekend's season-opening round at Aragon.

Aragon WorldSBK - Day 2 test results: