Johnny Rea on poor start to World Cup: Lack of telepathy / Superbike World Championship

Jonathan Rea has a measly eight points to his name ahead of the third event of the 2024 World Superbike Championship next weekend at the TT Circuit in Assen. 17th place, 10th place and a crash was the result of a disaster from the start in Australia, one retirement, 13th place in the race and 8th place in the second main race in Barcelona was not much better. Small consolation: The 119-time race winner scored his first World Championship points in Catalonia with the new Yamaha.

Much went wrong in these two events; critics were already saying that Rea had forgotten how to drive. Johnny has already won 17 Superbike races at Assen and is confident that he will be on the road to success there with the R1. “I know what it takes to be fast here,” said the six-time world champion when he met with SPEEDWEEK.com on Thursday. “For me everything points to a strong weekend, even if I still have to know the Yamaha’s capabilities.”

“For me, this year’s calendar is unfortunate,” Rea said. “It feels like we’ve had half a season behind us, but we’ve had two race weekends – the gaps between events are huge. And both weekends the tires played a decisive role. Assen is a normal race track, normal. I’ve taken a few tricks here; many other riders have seen through this. It would help if the track was dry on Friday so I could get to know the new bike better. But the forecast doesn’t look very promising.

At the beginning of the season, Rea’s biggest problem became apparent: he still didn’t get along well with his new technical team. “The fact that I understand them and they understand me comes gradually,” says the man with start number 65. “It takes time, but I believe in the Yamaha crew, they are great and intelligent people. I worked with my previous crew chief for years nine and we also had a hard time. But when I said we had to go left, I had to explain this in words to the new staff. I spent a lot of time in the pits explaining my opinion. As a driver, you can also create additional problems if you talk too much. This is a new situation for me too. But I’m sure it will work out little by little.”

Rea’s chief of staff at Kawasaki, Pere Riba, and his current one at Yamaha, Andrew Pitt, are former racers. “They’re more alike than you think,” said the 37-year-old. “They’re very smart, Andrew has an amazing work ethic. He’s always trying to get better and push everyone. Pere was the same way. The big difference is that I did I worked with Pere for nine years and he knew what to do. I have a good relationship with Yamaha. I hope we can get back to normal in Assen.”