Rea ‘I want to go home’
Star escapes major injury in nightmare Yamaha debut
After nine years with Kawasaki delivered six titles, one would have been either brave or stupid to suggest Jonathan Rea would depart Phillip Island with no points in his Yamaha debut. But there is still hope, as shown by teammate Andrea Locatelli who collected a pair of second places.
For Rea, the whole meeting brought a series of unfortunate events. Firstly, the two-day test was shortened to one as Pirelli’s harder tyres for the new surface were delivered late due to conflict disrupting the Suez Canal.
With a distinct lack of rear grip, which can cost a rider half a second in the last two corners alone, Rea’s test ended early with a monster highside during which he was fortunate to avoid a broken leg when struck by his R1. Unbelievably, another massive accident at the same corner curtailed his weekend on Sunday.
“I was just behind Johnny, his crash was massive,” noted Danilo
Petrucci. Until then, things were looking up for Rea who had run as high as fourth.
A day earlier, Rea’s Race 1 went pear-shaped when PATA Yamaha lost over 20 seconds in the pits during their rear wheel change. All in all, it was a weekend to forget.
“Physically, I’m OK,” Rea stated hours after being stretchered away, the race having been halted. “I hit my hip quite hard but have no further injuries. I’m really frustrated. The crash came as a big surprise, just as I was building confidence. We have to rebuild from zero, look into the crash and improve the feeling. We can see how competitive Loka is. For now, I want to go home, reset and come back strong in Barcelona.”
Locatelli had a far more successful weekend alongside new Crew Chief, Tom O’Kane, who has been drafted in from Yamaha’s MotoGP squad to replace Andrew Pitt who is now working alongside Rea. The Italian was second in Race 1 and Sunday’s Sprint, while his Race 2 came to an abrupt end while challenging Alvaro Bautista and Alex Lowes for victory on the final lap. Heading into Miller Hairpin, he overtook Lowes only to run wide; in his attempts to recover from a false neutral, Locatelli locked up the rear.
“It’s a shame because we’ve done a really good job and made no mistakes,” said Locatelli. There is also speculation that technical issues caused the Yamaha crashes, with Locatelli continuing: “We don’t know why but the bike was in neutral. I tried to select a gear but made a mistake and lost the rear. The initial problem was the false neutral, which is a big shame.”
Locatelli sits third and 21 points in arrears ahead of Round 2 on the weekend of March 22-24.
‘We now have to rebuild from zero’