Rea: ‘Experience’ plays key role in accepting ‘bad days’

Jonathan Rea has detailed how he puts bad days behind him, something he had to contend with on more than one occasion during the 2021 WorldSBK season. 

Although Rea put together a stunning season, one that saw him match world champion Toprak Razgatlioglu for wins, the Kawasaki rider had to accept second best for the first time since 2015. 

To put his WorldSBK dominance into perspective, Rea has won more world championships since 2015 than both MotoGP and F1 stars Marc Marquez and Lewis Hamilton.

From 2015 to 2020 Rea was faultless for much of those seasons, in fact, since joining Kawasaki Rea had only suffered seven race retirements during those years. 

His most prolific season came in 2019 when he finished every single race inside the top five - had just three races where he failed to claim a podium. 

However, 2021 saw him score three non-finishes which is nearly half the total of 2015-2020, while five of his six crashes all came in race situations - his highest number since 2011.  

On top of that, Rea had to recover from a loss of track-time on more than one occasion, which without the experience he’s now accumulated would have left the ‘younger version of me would have been in a proper crisis’.

Speaking about dealing with difficult moments, Rea told Crash.net: "At the end of the season we were less likely to find time from me and change the bike, but my crew chief (Pere Riba) understood that and we managed the last races in a good way. 

"We made some mistakes of course, but I feel like in Mandalika especially; in FP1 we had a technical problem and I only had one exit from the box.

"Then I spent more than half the session in the box at a circuit we had never been to, had no data, so we were so on the back foot, but FP2 was better and we maximised track time and felt good with the bike.

"Sometimes when you have tough days like that it’s so easy to throw your head up and the younger version of me would have been in a proper crisis. 

"I would have been frustrated and angry, but with time and experience I’ve learned to accept that bad days happen and sometimes the best way to get over it is to forget about it which we were able to do really quickly."