Jonathan Rea ended the Misano weekend with a third place in Race 2, which at least allowed him to stem the rise of Toprak Ratzatlioglu, who made up the points and is now -20 behind the Kawasaki rider in the overall standings. Rea had to use all of his experience to get through the lap of the course named after Marco Simoncelli, a track that does not seem to improve his ninja’s characteristics.
The world champion didn’t make it a big deal though, because in all three races he managed to get home ahead of Scott Redding, his main competitor for the title, even if the Briton slipped to third in the overall standings behind Toprak Razgatlioglu after today’s races.
Here the SBKs rode in very similar times to the MotoGP bikes, but Jonathan Rea declined to comment in detail on these performances.
“I don’t want to talk about MotoGP and performance comparisons. Here the SBKs make a good impression compared to the MotoGPs.”
Rea had this to say about his race.
“I was missing a bit of stability. I had to sacrifice a bit of agility to improve my set-up in that area. Toprak had great pace but I wanted to fight to stay with him. I tried to stay with Rinaldi but when he finished sixth towards Curvone I had no chance to overtake him. I had to hope that he would make a mistake in order to overtake him, but he didn’t. I have nothing to complain about today, I was in the middle of a hell of a fight. What I noticed is that if the others make a few small mistakes, they still set good lap times. On the other hand, if I make a mistake, I suffer a lot more on my lap time. I have to try to stay fluid all the time. and make the most of our fluidity, the property of our bike “.
Have you ever thought that you could get victory?
“I was close, but for the last 3 or 4 laps I thought I’d avoid the risk and accept my position. I took a small ganble on my bike and it was a decision that luckily gave us some small advantages. I think I made the right choice but what I made up for in the low gears I lost in the fastest parts of the track. I lost something in the Curvone, so I had to give everything on every lap to stay with the top guys. Sometimes I’ve even strayed from the perfect line, but at least I think I’ve made the most of the bike’s potential. I wanted this result and looking forward to my weekend I’m very happy, I kept a pace worthy of my qualifying. Still in the fight, now I can’t wait to go to Donington and I will happily go there after getting on the podium three times. “
What do you think you were missing to win?
“I think what we really missed this weekend was the speed when changing direction. The ninja is heavy there and it happens in different places on the track. When I tried to be more aggressive during these phases, the bike started to move too much, causing me to lose time when accelerating. Our bike has a lot of grip on the shoulder, but we have to work even better on the agility. At least Donington is the more suitable track for us, on which you have to be very fluid. The first two sectors are very ‘Kawasaki’, I think we will be strong there. But the two guys on the podium also took a few steps forward today and will be there. “
Do you find it hard to accept that you don’t win over a weekend?
“I have to accept it when we have weekends like this. These are races where the goal is to limit the damage to the championship, to try to get as many points as possible, and I think I have that today Done. I was also lucky yesterday that I didn’t make it. ” crash, so that’s fine. “
Your rivals are getting much younger than you. How do you manage to live with it?
“I’m happy to be fighting these young drivers, I think it’s cool. I have a lot of experience, but it’s nice to see how much the guys who come from 300 SSP and even 600 SSP improve. Being new and stronger drivers for me today Manu Gonzales was impressive, a very fast young driver. He deserves to be here. Toprak is very young too, but he definitely deserves to be at the top of the podium because he’s talented. “
Audio recording by Riccardo Guglielmetti in Misano
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