Just two days after the 2025 season ended at the Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto, Garrett Gerloff was back at the very same track to make preparations for his second season as a Kawasaki WorldSBK rider.
Garrett was reunited with a previous crew chief from his earlier WorldSBK career, Les Pearson, at Jerez. The new-look team got down to work on some set-up ideas during what was always planned as a one-day test before the winter development programme begins.
Light rain arrived at just the wrong time in the morning for Gerloff and several other WorldSBK and WorldSSP riders who were also testing.
The conditions alternated between very light rain and sunshine for a short period in the morning, with the rest of the day providing a more stable set of dry surface conditions.
Starting out from a strong base, and trying some new set-up ideas that are not normally possible to implement inside a race weekend, were the main priorities at this particular test.
Garrett set 61 laps, even with the slight morning rain interruption, and was eighth fastest overall. His 1’39.689 best lap of the day was slightly faster than his best race lap at the final round, just two days earlier.
Garrett Gerloff
“We just finished off the first test in preparation for the 2026 season. I have a new crew chief. We changed a lot of things on the bike. We got a bit of information that we can use going into the future, but I am kind of still struggling at this track, to be honest. But we are trying stuff, and we will take what we learn here and make some positive changes for the next testing sessions in January 2026.”
