Triple World Superbike champion Jonathan Rea praised the efforts of his Kawasaki team after securing his first wins at Jerez with a double success.
The Northern Irishman clinched an historic third world title in the opening race of the Magny-Cours weekend last month, but came into this weekend’s Jerez round determined to add to his win tally in order to take the record for most points scored in a single season away from Colin Edwards.
Rea had never stood atop the rostrum at Jerez ahead of Saturday’s outing, but rectified this when Ducati’s Marc Melandri dropped out of the lead in the closing stages with a technical issue.
“We had a little bit of luck on Saturday,” admits Rea.
“I feel like Marco deserved Saturday’s race because I just didn’t have quite enough.
“So, with that in mind, we had to make huge changes to the bike.”
Struggling with front tyre life in the cooler conditions of Sunday morning warm-up, Rea was concerned similar issues would arise during the race.
Running a set-up and front tyre chosen by crew chief Pere Riba, Rea was able to leap up the order from ninth to lead across the line at the end of lap one, before permanently moving ahead of Yamaha’s Michael van der Mark to cruise to a 52nd career win.
“Pere asked me to trust him with the front geometry of the bike, but also the front tyre, and with that change I was just a bit unsure if we would run into some difficulties on the final lap,” Rea, who is now equal on wins with triple WorldSBK champion Troy Bayliss, said.
“On the exit of Turn 6, I was dipping my head down on the side of the bike to see some huge wear marks on the tyre, because I destroyed it in 18-degree temperatures in morning warm-up.
“But for the whole race it seemed to stay together. The rear was incredible and I have to thank Pirelli.
“It was a huge team effort, but I felt like I sat on the bike today and made the result, but it was Pere Riba who deserves this race win.”
Rea needs to do the double at Losail – another circuit he is yet to win at – next weekend if he is to surpass Edwards’ points tally of 506 set in the American’s second title-winning season in 2002.
