Rea amazed by Toprak lap: ‘It’s like he doesn’t see the dirty part of the track’

After qualifying a second down on Toprak Razgatlioglu and finishing 11 seconds down in Race 1, Jonathan Rea has given high praise to the current WorldSBK champion.

Robert Jones

12 Nov 2022

Jonathan Rea, Kawasaki WorldSBK Mandalika

Razgatlioglu thoroughly dominated the first of three WorldSBK races in Mandalika as he aims to prolong the 2022 title fight until Phillip Island.

During the early stages Rea was able to keep touch with the race leader before Razgatlioglu dropped the Kawasaki rider to the tune of two seconds in just a few laps.

While Rea wasn’t expected to challenge the Yamaha rider for victory, the margin between the two in Superpole was the largest gap from first to second for 15 years.

Speaking about his rival’s performance, Rea said: "I can’t take anything away from him, it’s very impressive but I’m riding with a margin. If I go over this dirty line; I just think he sees the track as [being] clean.

"It's like he has a darker visor and doesn’t see the dirty part. Fair play, that lap time was incredible."

Although conditions were improved on Saturday compared to Friday’s practice sessions, Rea still called the situation a ‘disaster’ after many crashes could have been avoided.

Eugene Laverty crash, Race 1, Indonesian WorldSBK. 12 November

"It’s a disaster! If you see Baldassarri, Mahias - you’re like one centimetre off the line," added Rea.

"I had so many scares yesterday. There’s a lot of crashes that could have been prevented this weekend if the track was better.

"The actual surface is good. They’ve done a really good job and credit to them for doing it because they’ve done it three times now. So that’s a big credit."

Race 1 ‘better than expected’ for the six-time WorldSBK champion

Without a victory since Estoril in May, Rea’s attempts of winning one of the last six races was a long way away from being pulled off.

After being dropped by Razgatlioglu, Rea was then overtaken by Alvaro Bautista before the same happened again.

But despite the lack of pace which he put down to the bike behaving differently when the grip levels drop, Rea was content to have wrapped up another podium.

"It was better than expected. The target was the podium. I didn’t expect to have Toprak in my view for so long and I thought after four or five laps that maybe I can be here," stated Rea.

"But as soon as the grip drops the bike starts behaving differently around that five-six-seven-eight section. On that side of the tyre I was really struggling.

"The biggest worry for us before the race was the front tyre because we were destroying front tyres. In parc ferme at the end of the race it was bad but not worse than the others. The problem is that my ear tyre was shot a lot more than the others.

"We need to try and improve the grip level tomorrow, especially when the initial grip drops and to stop these movements. The track is getting better and better and is rubbering in, so even without a set-up change it should be better but we still need to make a step."