Alex Lowes to Kawasaki seat?
Two days of suspense – well, more like several months – finally came to a head on Sunday afternoon when Jonathan Rea claimed his piece of history. Victory in Race 2 gave him four points more than what was required to ensure that Bautista cannot catch him, even if he goes home for a nice long rest.
It was time, at last for Rea to count his chickens. And they added up to an impressive, indeed recordbreaking total.
The metaphor turns turtle for his Spanish rival, however. At the start of a season, Alvaro and his spanking new Ducati V4 romped to victory in the first 11 races while the four-time champion could only watch on. It seemed like an object lesson. A rider who was only average – well, to be fair, above average in MotoGP – ‘slums it’ in World Superbikes and shows them all a touch of class. So there.
But it didn’t last. The seemingly unflappable Rea kept the pressure on and Bautista started making mistakes. The honour of WSB, permanently uncomfortable in the role of second-tier racing, was ultimately upheld.
It’s also significant to note the role played at the decisive French weekend by Toprak Razgatlioglu. In only his second WSB season, the Turk beat Rea to second on Saturday and then again in Sunday morning’s sprint. Had he repeated the feat in the afternoon, Rea would have had to wait until the next round in Argentina for another chance to take a historic fifth straight crown. Instead, Razgatlioglu crashed and knocked Bautista down for the second time this year. He did the same at Laguna Seca which was in some ways the pivotal race of 2019. A distinction it shares with Rea’s crucial triple win at Donington, under-pinning his steady accumulation of points.
It’s been a stimulating season. While it’s special to watch a dominating master at work, as in Marc Marquez in MotoGP, it’s even better to get some surprises and bite some nails. The growing maturity of the young Turk, Bautista’s move to a revitalised Honda and the arrival in WSB of a pumped-up Scott Redding promise more for 2020.
Just like this year, Rea is unlikely to find title number six plain sailing. But for now he’s again proved one thing that needed proving: that you don’t have to be Spanish to succeed in world championship racing.
‘Rea is unlikely to find title No. 6 plain sailing’