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Jonathan Rea and Kawasaki are the third best of the championship, as we can see from the standings, both in the championship as well as the first race in Mandalika. The real problem is that his rivals are far ahead. If Johnny gained one second on Razgatlioglu yesterday in the superpole, today that one became eleven, and even Bautista was far (by 7 seconds).
“At the beginning of the race, I didn’t expect to keep up with Toprak for so long. After four or five laps, I thought I could keep up with him, but my tires had a big drop,” Rea said. “My concern before the race was destroying the front tire. I took a look at it in the parc fermé, and it wasn’t that bad. The problem was the rear. Tomorrow should be better. We’ll make some changes to the set-up to progress.”
Jonathan knows he still has room for improvement.
“Yesterday we tried to get more traction, but I couldn’t ride. I need stability,” he explained. “Today we went back, and it went better. I learned some things. It’s true that, if yesterday the clean trajectory was half a meter wide, today it was one meter. It’s a disaster. Look what happened to Baldassarri, Lecuona, Mahias. All you have to do is get off of the trajectory, and it becomes scary.”
The big problem is a circuit in bad condition after the new asphalt was laid. They finished it too late, and the SBK riders became … sweepers.
“They should’ve resurfaced the circuit after the MotoGP race, which was at the beginning of the year. Instead, they started a month and a half ago and finished two weeks ago,” Rea stressed. “There were lots of falls this weekend that could’ve been avoided if the track had been better prepared. But the new asphalt is good.”
The only one who didn’t seem to suffer from these conditions was Yamaha’s Turkish rider.
“Yesterday, the Superpole was impressive. I rode keeping some leeway, because I didn’t want to get off of the clean trajectory, and I didn’t see the dirty one, since if I had a dark visor,” the Kawasaki rider said jokingly, “My time was good. Maybe I could’ve lowered it by half a second, but Toprak’s was incredible.”
Jonathan hasn’t won a race since Portimao, Could Indonesia be where he returns to the top step of the podium?
“It would be nice to win. I feel good on the bike. I still need a bit of confidence,” his said, “We’re where we are, but we’re starting to recuperate. I think we need to understand and improve, and I’ll try. It’s true that I finished third, but it would’ve been different if I had been a second away from the winner. This doesn’t frustrate me. Toprak, Alvaro, Yamaha, and Ducati did a great job today, and we have to acknowledge that, We have to progress. The superpole race is always different. You don’t have to think about the tires. I think I’ll use the same ones like today. I don’t think the softer one on the rear would last for ten laps.”
