Jonathan Rea takes first Yamaha victory… on dirt

Jonathan Rea has taken his first victory for Yamaha, although it came on a YZ450F.

Rea was taking part in the champions’ charity dirt bike race at the EICMA show in Milan, which also featured riders such as Casey Stoner — on a two-stroke Beta — and Carlos Checa in the legends version of the race.

Up against contemporary riders, Rea came out victorious on his flat-track-modded YZ450F over Supermoto World Championship rider Elia Sammartin and Ryan Vickers in third, the latter currently preparing for his first season of WorldSBK action in 2025 as he joins the Motocorsa Ducati team.

Rea’s EICMA triumph is his first win of any kind since moving from Kawasaki to Yamaha last winter.

The six-times WorldSBK Champion secured only one podium finish in 2024, in the Superpole Race at Donington, during a difficult first season on the YZF-R1, a bike which went from winning seven races in 2023 — all with Toprak Razgatlioglu — to none in 2024, despite a mid-season homologation update which, most notably, introduced new aerodynamic winglets to the bike.

Rea remains with Yamaha for 2025, the Japanese manufacturer keeping a mostly-unchanged WorldSBK line-up compared to 2024; with Rea remaining alongside Andrea Locatelli in the factory team, and Remy Gardner and Dominique Aegerter staying in the satellite GRT team.

On the other hand, the Motoxracing team has expanded from one bike to two for 2025, and brought in Tito Rabat and Bahattin Sofuoglu, the latter making his WorldSBK debut next season.