Yamaha's Jonathan Rea on 'most difficult' season of career but vows to fight back in 2025 World Superbike Championship

Rea left Kawasaki after a nine-year association, during which he won a record-breaking six consecutive world titles, and joined the Pata Prometeon Yamaha team, effectively taking Toprak Razgatlioglu’s seat in the squad, who made the move to BMW.

However, it has been a hugely challenging year for Rea, who is 13th in the championship ahead of this weekend’s final round at Jerez in Spain.

The 37-year-old, who has won a record 119 races, has only managed one podium result in 2024, which he achieved at Donington Park in the summer with third in the Superpole race.

Rea, though, has taken heart from a solid performance at the penultimate round at Estoril in Portugal, where he finished fourth and fifth in the two main races, which he hailed as his best weekend of the season.

The Ballyclare man will want to put this year behind him, but Rea is optimistic of a much more successful campaign in 2025.

“I’m looking forward to the weekend. Parts of me are really excited about Jerez and trying to cap off the season in a good way, and then a part of me that wants to completely forget about this disappointing and challenging season as a whole and refocus for ’25,” said Rea, who was fifth fastest in free practice at Jerez on Friday.

“It’s nice because we’re coming from a good weekend at Estoril. From what I understand, the base set-up we have now is very similar to when I first rode the bike last year in November.

“With all the changes we’ve made, we’ve come back to a happy base setting. I feel like I’m more optimistic going into here than I was going into Estoril, but in the end, Estoril turned out to be a positive one.

“In all honesty, when I first rode the Yamaha, I loved the feeling of the bike. It wasn’t a full grid at the test, but I still felt quite fast,” he added.

“I couldn’t imagine this being the most difficult season of my whole career. We know it’s challenging times, but I really feel better days are coming.”

Rea remains committed to the Yamaha project and has vowed to work hard over the winter to find improvements for next year.

“I know Yamaha are working really hard in the background to improve the bike in all different aspects,” he said.

“I feel there’s reasons to be optimistic that we can be more competitive next year. It’s just piecing all the bits together, all the marginal gains.

“I’ll work on myself, trying to improve, because I don’t feel the team, or the bike are getting my full potential right now.”

Rea was in the mix in free opening free practice at Jerez but feels he will need to find a little extra on Saturday to keep improving.

“I put everything together and did a good lap time but I think for our true potential we still need to improve,” he said.

“It’s going to be really important tomorrow to start well in FP3 and give ourselves a good chance with Superpole. As we found out in Estoril, when you have track position on Lap 1, it’s much easier to fight for a good result.”

Razgatlioglu is on the verge of winning the title and a top-three finish in Saturday’s first race (13:00 BST) would be enough to secure a second world crown for the Turkish star.