Jonathan Rea: “The tide has to change; we’ve had a lot of issues thrown our way”
“Now, if something’s not right or not there or the🧜 stars aren’t aligning, you’re 🐼on the struggle bus," says Jonathan Rea
168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Jonathan Rea’s frustrating weekend in Barcelona concluded with P8 in Race 2 at the 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:WorldSBK second round.
The Yamaha rider&nb✃spꦉ;“fried the clutch” on the starting line of Race 1 and retired without completing a single lap, but fared better on Sunday.
Rea🙈 was P13 in the Superpole rac𒆙e after a Lap 1 incident where he was squeezed off-track.
Impressively, in Race 2 on♒ Sunday afternoon, Rea made up four positions within the first lap after starting from the fift♐h row.
He settled for eighth, and reacted: “Overall, it’s been a very disappointingꦛ weekend.
“Like the🅘 trend of Phillip Island, we have madeꦍ progress even if it might not look like that.
“We’ve taken our f♍irst points of the season in Race 2. Race 2 was a problem-free race without issues.
“I struggled starting from P13 because you don’t🔴 have track position and you have to be a bit more a꧂ggressive in the beginning.
“Then, after that, I’d already wasted some tyre and then tried to conserve as ෴much as possible.
“Guys like Remy Gardner, Danilo Petrucci and ♏Michael van der Mark and Alex, I thought they’d come back to me at the end.
“They dropped their pace a little bit butﷺ not enough. I was catching but I ran out ಌof laps.
“There are some positives in there; it’s not where we want to be right now but we’ll move onto Assen and try and hav𓂃e an open mind with what could happen there.
“The tide has to change; we’ve had a lot of issues thrown ❀our way and we’൲re dealing with them in a really good way as a team by trying to breathe and turn the page.”
Rea’s ♐Pata Prometeon Yamaha teammate Andrea Locatelli crashed out of Race 2 on the first lap.
Sunday in Barcelona belonged to Toprak Razga🔴tlioglu (Superpole winner) and Alvaro Bautista (Race 2 winner).
Ex-Kawasaki legend Rea has not💦 been, so far, among the🍒 frontrunners in 2024.
“You don’t have to be too far off the pace now to be fighting outside t🍌he top ten and I don’t have that ultimate pace on the bike yet,” he said.
“I’m still finding my🉐 feet and trying to understand the bike.
“I’m really pushing the team to give me what I need🍃 to be fast. It’s taking time but I’m sure it will arrive.
“I really believe in the people around me so there’s a lot of credit to them; they deserve this as much as I do. We’ll keep with it, not give up and Assen is a happy hunti🐎ng ground for me so there’s no better place to go next to try and score some big points.
“You have to take these small wins; we’re not fighting for the podium,🎃 that’s always the target.
“The🧸 class is stacked; last year, you could be a little bit off and fight easily in the top ten.
“Now, if something’s not righ💜t or not there or the stars aren’t aligning, you’re on the struggle bus.
“We need to maximise our﷽ weekends and try and stay out of trouble. Superpo🎐le is super important; I messed up my lap so I have to shoulder some of that but we probably didn’t prepare in the right way either with Free Practice 3 being tough.
“When you start from the fifth row, your race is༒ almost w💜ritten on the wall.
“Assen’s focus will be getting a bike that I can race with well but also starting further up the grid. We c𝄹an’t force the wave to come but when it does, I’m sure we’ll ride it well.”
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to foꦏotball, to F1.
