Fourth For Rea In Estoril
Jonathan Rea achieved a fine fourth place finish in WorldSBK race two on the final day of Round 11 of the 2024 FIM Superbike World Championship at Estoril, today.
It was a tale of two halves on Sunday for Rea. He started well in the 10-lap Tissot Superpole race but after dropping back to seventh, a front slide on the exit of Turn 10 saw him almost save his Yamaha R1 WorldSBK on his elbow but ultimately go down. There was no major damage to his R1 race machine and he was able to remount and continue in the race but finished down the order in P22.
When the lights went out in race two this afternoon Rea made the most progress from P10 on the grid to run just behind his team-mate Andrea Locatelli in fourth place. As the race developed, the #55 of Locatelli challenging for the podium places but unfortunately a crash at Turn 6 on Lap 9 ended his challenge prematurely.
Running the same pace as his teammate and Iker Lecuona, directly in front, Rea was able to consolidate his advantage to bring home a strong fourth position after Lecuona also went down at Turn 6 on Lap 10.
Rounding out a highly-competitive, if not perfect, weekend in difficult conditions was a positive end to the Estoril Round for Pata Prometeon Yamaha, before the final test of the 2024 WorldSBK season begins in just a few days’ time at Circuito de Jerez on 18-20 October.
Jonathan Rea – SPRC: P22 / Race 2: P4
“My day didn’t start so well in the Superpole Race, which meant P10 on the grid for Race 2 but it didn’t really matter because I made such a good start! The launch to 200kph was great and I forced a good track position in Turn 1. Iker came past me quite early, and just away from the podium group both he and Loka were on a similar rhythm to me. I pushed to stay on their pace and try to catch them, but suddenly I found myself all on my own after they went down and I was actually a bit nervous! Then I just tried to do my rhythm and backed off a little bit from riding on the limit because it was a long race, trying not to make any mistakes and understanding my Yamaha R1 as the race developed. P5 and P4 results in the long races is far and away our best weekend and something to build on. If we look at the progress I’ve made and the team has made in these last few rounds, coming back from injury in Aragon and to rebound here was certainly positive. We have reason to be optimistic, we can’t give up on this, and especially now at the end of the season we’re starting to see some fruits from all our labour. I really would love to carry on this kind of result, battling inside the top five again would be a good finish to our year. A solid weekend in Jerez is the aim next before getting stuck into the off-season.”