Race One Retirement For Rea In Catalunya

Jonathan Rea endured a difficult day in Race 1 of the Catalunya Round of the 2024 FIM Superbike World Championship in Spain today. 

Rea was confident to make progress from the fifth row of the grid after a challenging Superpole session. But a mistake on the grid saw him burn out his clutch at the start race, leaving no option but to retire his machine before completing a lap in earnest. 

Tomorrow is a new day of competition, with a short 10-minute Warm Up at 9:00 CET before the Superpole Race at 11:00 and Race 2 at 14:00. 

Jonathan Rea – SP: P13 / Race 1: DNF

“Following a successful test aboard the R1 here last week, and after making significant progress during Free Practice yesterday, I was quietly confident about fighting for a good result in the race today. Qualifying didn’t go quite according to plan, but the longer runs yesterday where we focused on tyre conservation for the race meant a strong result was possible today. Unfortunately, I fried the clutch off the start and didn’t even manage to complete a lap. I’m sorry for the team, who worked incredibly hard in the run up to this race only for it to end on the first lap. But now we will put this behind us and focus on tomorrow, where we need a strong performance in the Superpole Race to ensure a good grid position for Race 2.”