REA WIN MATCHES FOGGY
Record-breaker Rea equals King Carl’s record after dominant Imola performance
Jonathan Rea has moved one step closer to becoming the most successful World Superbike rider of all-time by equalling Carl Fogarty’s win tally of 59. His perfect score of two wins and two fastest laps from pole position at Imola increased his championship lead to 47 points over Chaz Davies ahead of the British Round at Donington Park in ten days’ time.
Rea controlled Saturday’s opening race from pole, while on Sunday he sliced through from the ninth on the grid. An entertaining battle with Ducati’s Davies saw a side-by-side sequence through Tamburello as well as contact made at the Tosa hairpin, but once Rea got ahead on Lap 13 the race was all but over as his lead increased to four seconds by the chequered flag. The racing was brilliant, but the whole thing had a certain inevitability about it.
So how is he doing it? How was he able to beat Ducati in their own backyard and end Davies’ four-race winning streak at the circuit? The triple World Champion demonstrates an almost frightening level of confidence and hard work, making sure he is first on track in every practice session, duly setting rapid lap times and putting in a near full race simulation by as early as the second session on Friday afternoon.
But the big difference was the way Rea was able to match his 2017 race pace at Imola despite the new-for-2018 technical regulations reducing the speed and level of his bike. This is down to not only Rea’s incredible work ethic but the development done by the team at the recent two-day Brno test. While it has taken Rea and Kawasaki five rounds to match their 2017 pace, Ducati and the rest of Rea’s rivals are still going slower than they were 12 months ago. The championship is by no means over, with 400 points up for grabs across the 16 remaining races. But despite racing to regulations designed to slow him down, Rea has still achieved a margin of 47 points ahead of Chaz Davies and 72 ahead of team-mate Tom Sykes just ten races in.
His rivals must now adopt a counter-attack mentality to prevent the title from being sewn up well before the end of the season as it has in the last three seasons . The series now heads to one of its spiritual homes; Donington Park with its current king gunning to become the first rider in history to hit 60 race victories.