Honda SBK, the Jonathan Rea effect: the CBR has already taken a step forward

Rea has already begun contributing to the growth of the Honda Superbike project, but there’s still a lot of work to do: will a turning point arrive in 2026?

HRC made a big move by signing Jonathan Rea as a tester to try to improve a CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP that, in the Superbike World Championship, has collected only three podiums in recent years with the Lecuona-Fores duo. It remains to be seen whether Jake Dixon and Somkiat Chantra will be the right riders for Honda’s planned relaunch, but the presence of a six-time world champion like the Northern Irishman can provide an important boost to the entire project.

Rea was present at the tests in Jerez and Portimao, where bad weather ruined the teams’ plans. Only on the Jerez test day dedicated to testers was the track dry, allowing work to be done in favorable conditions.

The six-time WorldSBK champion tried to get to know the Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP as well as possible, adapting himself and also adapting the bike to his needs: "I have some ideas on how I can contribute positively to this project - reports Speedweek - With every lap it became more fun and I understood better how the bike reacts to certain situations. I had the feeling that the riding position was too low. The triangle formed by handlebar, seat, and footpegs is essential for a rider. In Jerez, on the first day, I did about 30 laps in five or six runs to get an initial idea of the strengths and weaknesses."

The lack of rear grip is a problem the HRC team has been carrying for years, and Rea has already given some useful indications to the engineers, who did well to find solutions to make some progress: "Rear grip was the biggest problem for us. But with some changes, the tires worked much better on the second day and I managed to do fast laps even on used tires. I believe these changes alone gave us a good step forward. This gives me confidence that we will achieve further improvements."

It’s too early to get excited, but the former Kawasaki and Yamaha rider has already provided some useful pointers to work on. Dixon and Chantra are both rookies, so an experienced champion like him can only be a valuable asset to exploit in developing the CBR. Even if the bike isn’t the same one he rode from 2009 to 2014, he already knows the Pirelli tires, and that alone is an advantage over the newcomers. By the way, Chantra has not yet ridden the Honda in 2026 and won’t do so at Phillip Island either, as he needs to recover from an injury. His replacement will be Tetsuta Nagashima, while the third CBR on track will be the wild card Ryan Vickers.