Jonathan Rea “a little bit more positive” but Jerez WorldSBK Race 2 “still below expectations”
“P9 is not what the target was this weekend but if we look at the big picture it is a step forward.”
After fighting for top-five positions in Estoril, one week later Jonathan Rea was struggling to finish inside the top-10 at the final WorldSBK race of the season in Jerez.
Although his performance in Jerez didn’t leave him feeling overtly positive, Rea at least saw that there was some progress on Sunday compared to Saturday.
“A little bit more positive today than yesterday,” Rea said, “but still below our expectations.
“From P16, I managed to put myself in a good position quite quickly in the Superpole Race, but I couldn’t hold off the attack from Domi [Dominique Aegerter] and [Alvaro] Bautista at the end.”
The late descent to 11th in the Superpole Race left Rea 15th on the grid for Race 2, but he made a decent recovery to end the season in the top-10 in ninth.
“Unfortunately, again I was back in the grid to start the final race,” he said.
“I made quite a good start to be honest and forced some good passes in the first couple of laps.
“I found myself in P10, but didn’t have the ‘out and out’ pace in the beginning and couldn’t take advantage of the new tyres — and we still really need to focus on improving the turning of the bike.
“When the initial tyre drop came for everybody, I managed to stay consistent — I was catching the group in front but we ran out of laps.
“It was a more solid race; P9 is not what the target was this weekend but if we look at the big picture it is a step forward.”
The final races were also used to try some things for 2025, especially in anticipation of the post-race Jerez test this week.
“We used today as a little bit of a test and tried some big set-up changes on the bike to try to give us some direction for the beginning of the winter test,” Rea said.
“More back-to-back testing is needed, though, at the next Jerez test and we expect all our rivals to be there as a reference.
“It’s the end of a long and challenging season, we will regroup now as a team and work to come back stronger in 2025.”
