World Superbikes: ‘Fundamental’ issues hampering Kawasaki's Jonathan Rea after lowly ninth at Mandalika in Indonesia

The Northern Ireland rider held off his KRT team-mate Alex Lowes to finish ninth, crossing the line over 14 seconds behind race winner and championship leader Alvaro Bautista, who has won the first four races of the 2023 season on the Aruba.it Ducati.

Rea’s latest underwhelming result comes after he finished seventh and eighth in last Sunday’s races at Phillip Island in Australia. He began the campaign with a runner-up result in a wet first race down under, but the 36-year-old has not been able to challenge for the podium places in the dry.

The six-time champion, who claimed 30 rostrums in 36 races last year on his way to third in the championship, admits he finds himself in uncharted territory with Kawasaki, but Rea is backing his team to turn things around.

“The bike wasn’t turning, I had no front traction and I’m really struggling there,” said Rea, who qualified fifth in Superpole but was demoted three places for slow riding after hampering Philipp Oettl.

“My rear tyre stayed quite stable throughout the race but my front traction was quite poor and I wasn’t able to get the bike stopped so good.

“It was a bit of a difficult last few laps trying to fight for position, guys were coming and I was being caught – a little bit like race two in Phillip Island. I was very frustrated with that and we need to understand what we can do better for tomorrow,” he added.

“There are some fundamental things right now that aren’t working with the bike, but I think once we fix them we can be there.

“I’ll try not to get frustrated with anything but coming from what we’ve achieved in the past, it’s definitely new territory, fighting for every single small point that’s there. But we’ve got to give it everything and tomorrow is a new day.”

Rea has slipped to fourth in the championship standings, 49 points behind Bautista, who won Saturday’s race by almost five seconds from Pata Yamaha’s Toprak Razgatlioglu.