World Superbikes: 'We need to keep our heads up' says Jonathan Rea after tough weekend in Indonesia

The six-time champion had hoped to bounce back from a difficult weekend in the season opener at Phillip Island in Australia, but Rea’s troubles went from bad to worse at the Mandalika International Street Circuit.

He struggled with his Kawasaki in the blistering heat in Saturday’s first race, finishing ninth, and regrouped after a crash in the Superpole race on Sunday to claim fourth behind team-mate Alex Lowes when the race was restarted over eight laps.

Rea, though, was empty-handed in the final race of the weekend when he crashed out of fifth place after losing the front of his Kawasaki. The 36-year-old was taken to the circuit medical centre for a precautionary check-up before being released.

He has endured the worst start to a season since joining Kawasaki in 2015, with a runner-up finish in a wet first race at Phillip Island the only real high point so far after he finished seventh and eighth in the Superpole race and Race Two respectively in Australia.

After two rounds, Rea is already 68 points behind Ducati’s Alvaro Bautista, who sealed a double at the weekend but blotted his copybook with a crash in the Superpole race.

There is now a break of almost seven weeks until the championship resumes at Assen in the Netherlands, where Rea is hoping to finally get his season up and running.

“It has been a very difficult weekend, with not so many positives,” Rea said.

“The track here in Mandalika has been quite inconsistent from Friday, when the grip level was really low, but we understood on race day that the grip level was incredibly high. So, we never nailed the set-up perfectly, but I felt that we got better,

“But we have to accept this tough weekend, try to learn from it and then put it behind us when we head back to Europe,” he added.

“So even as we are disappointed, we need to keep our heads up and keep fighting. I feel Assen is a great track to come back to with some strong results.”