Gordon Ritchie | January 25, 2018
Jonathan Rea Fast Again Despite Being Ring Rusty—After such a long winter break for Jonathan Rea, much of it involving championship-winning PR work or spending time in Australia with his young family, the KRT rider took a little time by his usual standards to get fully comfortable at the recent Jerez tests.
Rea only needs another six wins to become the most successful WorldSBK rider in terms of race wins of all time.
Nonetheless, he vied with his teammate Tom Sykes for fastest rider status on race tires. He did not opt to use a qualifying tire (“we had one mounted, but we had no interest to use one,” said Rea after the final track session), so he ended up half a second adrift of Sykes in the final timesheets.
Jonathan Rea used all his available track time to get used to the much-changed track conditions he found compared to the Jerez test last November.
With a shiny new chapter of WorldSBK history in his pocket, thanks to his unique third championship win in succession on the Ninja ZX-10RR last year, Rea will still be approaching this year’s championship in much the same way as before.
“I honestly feel that you have to reset to zero every year,” said Rea. “Everything changes, everybody steps up and everybody has had the winter to think about things. Manufacturers, riders, and teams. I try not to get too excited. Last year was a dream come true, especially all the accolades that came with it, so I felt really special after last year. I am just trying not to get ahead of myself. It is going to be tough again this year.”
The Fear of Losing
As far as reasons to win and win again in 2018 go, Rea has at least one new imperative. “I think the motivation is that I am at the top, I am the reference for everybody in the championship. It is actually really scary to not be there because the only way is down. So that is the motivation. I have been working really hard on myself in the offseason, it’s the fear of not being the number one guy. But I had that same feeling last year. Last year was about beating rivals but also about the fear of getting beat. This year it is more of that motivation to stay on top.”
Fear of dropping down is one motivation but Rea can also tap into the more positive aspects of attaining even greater success in 2018. Another title would make him equal with four-time champion Carl Fogarty, who currently stands alone as the only rider with a quartet of crowns.
Another six race victories and Rea would be a stand-alone all-time record race winner in WorldSBK. Currently, Fogarty has that leading status, with 59. Anybody thinking that Rea will ease-off in 2018 after his magical triple-crown in 2017 may well have another thing coming.
