Jonathan Rea target 'to make some magic' after Donington Park finish as top Yamaha in World Superbike race one
Northern Ireland’s Jonathan Rea managed his best World Superbike full-length race result to date with Yamaha by finishing fifth around Donington Park – then declared hopes ‘to make some magic’.
Rea, a six-time World champion, entered round five of the season’s calendar 14th in the standings and still chasing a maiden podium for Yamaha after his switch from Kawasaki.
However, Rea finished the Superpole outing eighth on Saturday on his home event for a third-row spot on the grid towards a final race one result of fifth.
“My pace was better than I expected and you know we had a bad Free Practice 1 as we had a technical issue,” said Rea on the www.worldsbk.com website. “But in Free Practice 2 my pace was okay and you always think that you need to improve but you forget the race pace is going to be about there and that everybody can only go so fast.
“To be honest, we didn’t change the bike drastically, we worked on some points this weekend, especially with the electronics to fine-tune it.
"Top five and a bonus was top Yamaha which is not something which we really think about as ‘Loka’ (team-mate Andrea Locatelli) was right there but it is nice.”
Rea was 1.436s behind Nicolo Bulega of Aruba.it Racing–Ducati to move up to 12th overall heading into Sunday’s Superpole race (11 o’clock start) and race two (2 o’clock start).
“It is hard to describe but still I feel like the bike is quite aggressive, as from an electronic point of view I need to be in harmony with what is going on and it seems like sometimes I am fighting against the traction control, wheelie control or engine braking,” said Rea. “That is probably the biggest area for improvement and it is all confidence as you know when you can trust that the electronics are working in synchrony with you it is almost telepathic that is when you can start to make some magic.”
Rea feels Sunday’s Superole race will prove key to the weekend outcome.
“The Superpole Race all depends on the start and tomorrow, I need to pray to the heavens that I get off the line good as that will make or break my day as that grid position carries over to Race 2 so it is an important one,” he said. “The race tyre has not been quite decided as I haven’t done much mileage with the SCX tyre this weekend which we feel will be the race tyre.”
Toprak Razgatlioglu won race one to protect top spot in the title race.