Tough Day For Rea In Aragon

Pata Prometeon Yamaha rider Jonathan Rea gave his maximum in an attempt to grind out positive results at a challenging Round 10 of the FIM Superbike World Championship at Aragon in Spain, today. 

A new asphalt surface and a compromised qualifying performance proved to be difficult walls to climb ahead of extremely strong WorldSBK competition in Sunday’s races. 

Rea finished P12 in the Superpole Race sprint – a positive point of which was recording his fastest time of the weekend on the final lap. 

Jonathan then finished WorldSBK race two in thirteenth place and alongside the P12 in the Superpole race tells the story of a “tough day at the office”. The Northern Irishman’s Superpole Race showed a stronger pace and good progress towards the end of the 10 laps, but a difficult opening few laps in Race 2 made recovery into the top ten places ultimately unsuccessful.

A well-deserved weekend off awaits before the penultimate round of the championship in just 11 days’ time at Circuito Estoril in Portugal, run back-to-back with the finale at Circuito de Jerez, Spain. 

Jonathan Rea – SPRC: P12 / Race 2: P13

“Super difficult end to the weekend – I didn’t make “bad” starts but had bad track position from Turn 1 and then lost positions on the back straight in quick succession. In the Superpole Race I had good pace at the end, I was going forward. But in the long race, I just had traffic and feel like with the Yamaha R1 you need clear track to really take advantage of all its strong points. Of course, when you’re in traffic you can’t do that and then I was vulnerable on the back straight. I got stuck behind Remy for a few laps, he passed me and I tried to pass him back – and then his pace wasn’t fast enough to go with the group. Finally, when I got past him, I was able to make some inroads to Bassani and Rinaldi but in the end, I just ran out of laps. Our pace wasn’t good enough, so it was a bit frustrating and a tough weekend overall.”