Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) has had an incredible 2015 WorldSBK so far and, after eight rounds completed, he leads the title race with an impressive 133-point margin over team mate Tom Sykes, courtesy of 11 race wins and 5 second places in the 16 races contested so far. WorldSBK.com caught up with the Ulsterman in Barcelona as he underwent some tests as part of his health and fitness programme, scheduled by his team in partnership with the Hospital de Barcelona.

This season has been a huge turnaround for you compared to your past in WorldSBK. How do you feel about it?
I take every day as it comes and don’t look back. I always believed in my potential and I knew one day I could fight for the Championship. To be honest I wouldn’t change anything about my past because it has made me a much better and more rounded rider. When I rode the ZX-10R in winter testing I immediately understood the level of the bike and the people around me. I knew it was my time and I thought: “I’m ready and so is my bike”.

I’m not thinking about what’s happening race by race. I don’t really want to be carried away, I’m just enjoying the moment.

After the first couple of tests you immediately said that with different setups you were able to be quick anyway. Has the bike helped you make the transition smoother because it’s not that sensitive to small changes?
My previous bike worked in a very small window and only with good grip level and the right temperature, but I feel we made a good job with it after all. With the Kawasaki the operational window is much bigger. In the first two days of testing, Pere Riba wanted to work only on seat and handlebar positions in order to make myself comfortable. Then I flew to Japan to test so many different seat pads, just to get me comfortable on the bike and then make the specification we requested. The seat is something I took for granted before but it is essential to get all the little components right to be ultra fast.

I just think the bike fits me really well. I hadn’t many complaints and the season has gone extremely well so far.

So what is that special with the Ninja ZX-10R? Everyone seem to be praising this bike…
It’s a combination of things. Paolo Marchetti and Danilo Casonato (Rea and Sykes’s Engine Engineer & Telemetry men) are able to set our bike apart from the rest at electronic level, because I feel we have the best electronics on the grid. From a chassis point of view, we have one of the most stable bikes, especially under braking and on high-speed corners. We also have negative points about that, mostly on stop/start corners where it’s a bit harder to change direction.

We’re working on it and so far we haven’t come across many bikes that are much faster as our engine performance is also quite strong. So in the end I think we just have the best package. However, we also have some weak areas, which we hope to improve soon. It’s a non-stop process.

This year so far you seemed like you were not pushing at your maximum. How much faster can you go?
It’s difficult to say. For example, in Donington we were on the back foot. Throughout the weekend I didn’t find the feeling I was looking for. While the bike was good, I just didn’t feel great overall. The only other time I really felt on the back foot was in Aragon, when Chaz Davies really surprised me at the beginning of the race by pulling away.

I still feel there’s a more to come. In the races I’m not riding with a lot in reserve but I’m thinking more about not making mistakes: this means that if I want to go faster then I need to push the limit a bit more. I have some margin. In the end it’s a World Championship and you cannot underestimate any of your opponents as the level is very strong.

I just hope we can continue like this because it feels a bit like a dream.

Funnily enough, you have never won on any of the next five tracks on the calendar. Are you planning on doing something about it?
I’m looking forward to all the upcoming rounds. I had a great feeling with Magny-Cours and Jerez, which is still a ‘young track’ for World Superbike. I could not race there in 2013 due to my broken leg, so last year it was my first-ever round at Jerez. In Qatar last year I had probably one of the best races of my career (Race Two), I had really good fun there and the bike was working very well. I feel this year, with the ZX-10R, we have more chances of doing well at each of the tracks we still have to visit. I’m also looking forward to Laguna Seca and also to Sepang, because it’ll be the first real ‘horsepower test’ of the season and I feel the Aprilias will be very strong there.

What about the upcoming round at Laguna Seca?
I had to sit out the races in 2013 due to injury, while last year I made a silly mistake during Superpole and crashed. It’s a difficult track to pass but with the red flags I ended up being on the podium in Race Two, which was good. That weekend proved how critical qualifying is for the outcome of the two Sunday races, so we need to make sure to work methodically through the weekend, as we always do, although with a bit more emphasis on Superpole. We could have done more in Misano, too, but the gap was only 0.2secs to pole position. We definitely need to be on the front row at Laguna.