REA AND PATA PROMETEON YAMAHA THWARTED IN PORTIMÃO RACE 1

Jonathan Rea finished 15th in today’s WorldSBK race one at Autodromo Internacional do Algarve near Portimāo after suffering technical problems with his Yamaha YZF-R1 race machine around the half way point in the race.

In an extremely close Superpole session, the Pata Prometeon Yamaha rider qualified on the third row of the grid, in P8. However despite a strong start to Race one, a positive result was elusive come the chequered flag. 

Rea carved his way through to fifth by Lap 4 but as he closed rapidly on Michael van der Mark for fourth position, he unfortunately connected with the rear of the Dutchman’s bike at Turn 13 and was forced to make a spectacular save to keep himself in the race. 

Despite high confidence in his Yamaha R1 WorldSBK and having recovered from this near-crash, soon after Rea’s quick shifter system failed, meaning that he had to shift gears manually for the remainder of the 20-lap feature race – an almost impossible task when the target is to keep up with the frenetic pace of WorldSBK.

Tomorrow Rea and the Pata Prometeon team will move their sights to a strong comeback. The day starts with a short Warm Up at midday for WorldSBK followed by the Superpole Race in the hottest part of the day at 14:45 local time, followed by Race two in the early evening at 18:00.  

Jonathan Rea – SP: P8 / Race 1: P15

“We definitely found a step forward today, but unfortunately quite early in the race we had an issue with the quick shifter so I couldn’t shift up or down with the electronics, and had to go back to manual shifting. The lap time obviously dropped a lot but I didn’t want to give up on the race – before this problem, my R1 was the strongest package I’ve ridden all season. Even without an amazing start, I made a good Turn 1, was able to pass some riders and felt like I could potentially catch the group in front. More positives than negatives to take from today, but it’s frustrating that we had a technical problem that kind of kicks us when we’re doing our best to keep the recent upward trend going and the confidence high! I definitely feel like we’ve turned a corner, I can ride on the limit and take liberties with the R1 to exploit its strengths and tomorrow in the Superpole Race I still get to start from my qualifying position in eighth – it gives me a good chance to get a good result and try to finish the weekend strongly in Race 2.”