The 2023 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship’s Race 1 at the TT Circuit Assen welcomed the return to the podium for Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK), with the Ulsterman taking a hard-fought second place. The 24^th podium for Rea at Assen means he is now equal with his other all-time records for podiums at a circuit, the others being Aragon and Portimao.

The six-time World Champion grabbed the holeshot at Turn 1 ahead of rival Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK) and Championship leader Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati), the latter of which was coming from P4 on the grid after a penalty in Superpole. Eight laps went by with Rea in the lead but the pressure was building from behind, and on Lap 9, Bautista hit the front at Turn 6 and held on until the end. But it wasn’t that simple; Rea latched onto the back for as long as he could but couldn’t quite make it count and after five laps, Rea was a second back and the race win was out of sight. He held on and managed the gap back to Razgatlioglu and despite a late charge by the Turk, Rea took P2.

Talking about the race, Rea stated he wished he had a bit more pace and that he pushed the front tyre too much: “It was good; nice to battle for the podium but I thought I had a little bit more pace to go with Alvaro but it was just clear in the race that he was taking too much time in certain areas and I was riding over myself and my package just to be there. In doing that, I over-stressed the front tyre and was nursing it a little bit at the end. I could see the gap to Toprak was enough; there’s work to do to make riding at that pace more comfortable. When he came, he went past and it seemed it was at ease. Congratulations to him, he’s done a very good job with his team but certainly a step forward for us.”

Asked whether or not it was a turning point, Rea quickly dismissed that, but was back into familiar territory: “Not a turning point but back to where I feel like I should be; battling for a podium, to win a race. It’s a long season and I feel like we got off to a bad start in the flyaway races but now we’re in normal conditions. I’m looking forward to Sunday, if we can just make some small changes tomorrow and look after the front. We’ll need to keep one eye on the weather tomorrow as it seems it could be more inconsistent than today. We’ll see what we can do; a good Superpole, a good Race 1 so I have to be happy with today.

“I feel like I am there or there abouts; it’s like when he says he can go and be for real, he can go. It’s not like we blow up, they’re just doing a better job over longer distance. We need to put some more performance back in the ZX-10RR, it’s very hard right now but we’re getting everything out of it. We need more, we need to be more competitive, especially in the acceleration areas and the straights. I was giving away a pretty free pass coming back towards the paddock but there was nothing I could do. We’ll keep fighting and it’s back to something nice, fighting for the podium.”

Watch the 2023 season in style throughout the year with the WorldSBK VideoPass!