Yamaha sure: Johnny Rea’s knot will soon break / Superbike World Championship

The team and brand changes have yet to pay off for Jonathan Rea. While his former Kawasaki team-mate Alex Lowes celebrated two victories with the ZX-10RR at Phillip Island and is third in the World Championship behind Barcelona (equal on points with Alvaro Bautista/Ducati in second place) and his predecessor Yamaha , Toprak Razgatlioglu, is fourth in the World Championship He also won two races in Barcelona, ​​​​The Northern Irishman is in 17th place in the overall standings with only eight points.

Never has a 37-year-old had such a bad start to a new Superbike season! It’s not Yamaha R1’s fault: Razgatlioglu came second in the world championship in 2023 and Andrea Locatelli has already reached the podium twice this year.

“When you have a challenge like we had with Jonathan in the first meetings, there is a risk of overcompensating and doing the wrong thing,” says Yamaha team boss Paul Denning. “The trick is not to start with blame, but to assess the difficulty wisely and stick to the process. You have to make sure you do the right things to improve performance. That’s also a challenge because if things don’t go in the right direction, sometimes you lose points and create more problems than you solve .

When researching the reasons, the immediate environment of the six-time world champion is undoubtedly taken into account. While Razgatlioglu took his longtime crew chief Phil Marron with him to ROKiT BMW, Rea did not bring any key people with him to Yamaha and was given Andrew Pitt as chief mechanic. The Australian previously looked after Andrea Locatelli. Rea and Pitt have known each other for years; In the 2008 World Supersport Championship they were teammates at Ten Kate Honda.

Denning sees no problem with this personality. “I would say that despite the result, things are going well. It’s clear that everyone had a very difficult test and race in Australia. When a rider has a bad crash and then another in the same corner and things don’t go well, then the tension is felt,” Denning he revealed. “But Andrew Pitt responded very well and did a great job during the test and the race. Andrew could not have prevented or improved the problems we had in Race 1 and Superpole. He is doing everything he can to keep everything positive and calm.”

The Englishman went on to say: “Jonathan has a lot of faith in Andrew and his way of working. I think because they’ve known each other so long and so personally, it gave Jonathan a level of trust and security that he probably wouldn’t have had. We may not have had a good beginning to the story, but if we continue to work well, then we can have a good middle and a good ending.”

Rea previously became the most successful superbike pilot in nine years with Kawasaki. Teams and motorcycles were made for the Northern Irishman. It is clear that he could not find such a situation at Pata Prometeon Yamaha. “Of course he has to get used to new conditions, especially since – and this is not normal for a racing driver – he has been riding the same motorcycle and in the same team for a long time,” the team boss is aware. “The adjustment is probably more difficult than it could be. But I don’t think it takes much more to finally gain confidence and dare to push myself, trust the bike and fight for the podium.”