Exactly 10 years and one day since his first WorldSBK win, Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) took his 74^th of an illustrious career, to close in on the championship lead. Rea made a fruitful start to the weekend, having been comfortably ahead of rival Alvaro Bautista (ARUBA.IT Racing – Ducati) in most conditions. With the rain, Bautista’s damage limitation ride meant that Rea could zero in on the Spaniard’s championship lead, which collapses to 32 points.

Despite achieving pole position, Rea started second after the opening laps of Race 1 saw the red flag waved due to track conditions. On the restart, Rea leapt into the lead from second on the grid, squeezing ahead of Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Team). However, with 12 laps to go, Lowes took the lead and began to edge clear from Rea, until disaster struck the Lincolnshire rider with 10 to go at Turn 12, as he crashed out. This left Rea to gingerly make his way round for his 149^th podium and his 74^th victory in WorldSBK – as well as exceeding 4000 points, becoming only the second rider to achieve this.

Speaking after the race, the reigning WorldSBK champion stated his elation of a Misano win: “It is a super-nice feeling. It has been a difficult weekend though, because all year, I have only ridden this bike in the wet in the morning Warm Up session in Imola. I made a gamble this morning in FP3 to keep my fast rhythm for the Tissot Superpole, but when I saw the rain clouds coming in, I was getting so nervous! I made a good start and tried to keep a good rhythm, nothing too crazy; when Alex came past, I just wasn’t prepared to be that fast because he was gaining time everywhere. However, 10 years after my first win, this one is very special!”

With a 28^th consecutive point-scoring ride, Jonathan Rea will seek to extend his form to tomorrow’s Tissot Superpole Race. Points for him in that will make it 185 consecutive races that Kawasaki have scored points in. Rea’s winning career of ten years and one day is now the third longest in WorldSBK history, with only Noriyuki Haga and Troy Corser enjoying longer stints at the top.

Continuing, Rea said: “I feel quite good in the dry, Pirelli have brought quite a lot of tyre options. I understand which one is going to be our race tyre and I am comfortable with that. The grip level here in Misano in the dry is a little bit slippier than before, which is the complete opposite to what we have in the wet, which is odd! We will try and do the best job we can!”

Can Jonathan Rea continue to close the gap down to Bautista? Find out with the WorldSBK VideoPass!