REA SAYS ‘SORRY FOGGY!’
Jonathan Rea notches up 60th race win to become the most winningest rider in WSB history
Jonathan Rea edged closer to becoming the most successful World Superbike rider ever after becoming the first man to win 60 races as he closes on Carl Fogarty’s four titles. The 31-yearold knows it will end eventually, but with how many wins and titles is the big question? His WSB future is secure having penned a new two-year contract with the Kawasaki team, so there is no letup on the horizon.
Since joining Kawasaki Rea has won 45 of his 92 races. That’s 48% and maintaining that hit rate would see him on almost 90 wins by the end of 2020. Saturday’s triumph in the
Czech Republic was classic Rea, blasting ahead of Tom Sykes to pull out over a second and remain completely unphased despite a red flag and further delay when the starting lights failed. He won the restarted race by 5.3 seconds, making it Kawasaki’s first at Brno since Scott Russell in 1993. “Sorry Foggy!” joked 31-yearold Rea. “I’ve found an incredible home in WSB especially with Kawasaki. Each and every win is special but what we’ve done these last three and a half seasons has been incredible. I want to keep living this dream. To get 60 wins is nice but I want to keep building. The motivation is to keep going.” Few superstars manage 60 wins. Rossi and Agostini are the only two to surpass the milestone in the premier class of Grand Prix racing. Shakey Byrne is the only man to achieve it in BSB. Only Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton have done it in F1. Will we see it happen again in WSB during our lifetimes? Maybe not. Sykes is on 34, Chaz Davies 29 and Marco Melandri 22 – and none are spring chickens.
It took almost two decades for the record to go since Foggy simultaneously clinched his 59th win and fourth title at Hockenheim in September 1999. “Jonathan is a great talent,” Fogarty commented. “It is about three things: a great team, bike and rider. If any of those three are missing you can’t win anything, no matter how good you are. He should stay at Kawasaki. In 1996 I left Ducati for Honda and broke up my winning team. It was a stupid thing to do and cost me world titles, even though I went back. Jonathan won’t do that. He is more intelligent than me. His incredible consistency is what wins championships.”
2018 has seen regulations change that were expected to rein-in the Kawasaki. Sure enough, Ducati won four of the opening six races but with every outing Kawasaki have grown stronger and following a test at Brno back in April appear to have now regained their superiority.