The final Superbike test of the year will take place in Jerez on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Yamaha has appointed a new crew chief for world record champion Jonathan Rea.
For Yamaha and Jonathan Rea, the 2024 World Superbike Championship ended in Jerez. The Northerner, who hoped for more success by switching from Kawasaki to the Japanese competitor, failed to win for the first time since entering the top division of the series-based world championship in 2009 and ended the season in just 13th place – a poor more than ever.
Yamaha hasn’t been this successful since it returned to the factory in 2016 – during that time, no Yamaha rider finished the season in the top 10 and no races were won.
Just as success has many fathers, failure does not have just one cause. It was hard to imagine that Yamaha would leave everything as it was after such a season.
An important change for Jonathan Rea will be implemented at the Jerez test this week: While Andrew Pitt previously worked as the six-time world champion’s crew chief, his long-time chief mechanic Oriol Pallares will now take over this role. The Spaniard followed the 37-year-old from Kawasaki to Yamaha a year ago.
It is expected that Yamaha will implement a new position on the chief of staff, which will be responsible for coordination. A possible candidate for this is Pitt. The 48-year-old has been working as crew chief at Yamaha since 2018. The supersport world champion from 2001 to 2008 looked after Alex Lowes, Michael van der Mark in 2020, Andrea Locatelli from 2021 to 2023 and Rea this year . The Australian has enough experience to perform such a role.
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