“Frustrating, We can’t catch a break!” Jonathan Rea after finishing seventeenth on Yamaha debut
All of Rea’s nightmares came true as he endured a torrid race 1 at Phillip Island, hampered by chatter and vibration issues along with an unusually long pitstop…
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Unlike Bulega and Iannone, Jonathan Rea endured one of his ‘hardest races’ of his life after finishing in P17 on his Yamaha debut. Meanwhile teammate, Andrea Locatelli finished in second place 2.2 seconds down on winner Nicolo Bulega.
Jonathan Rea vowed to find some direction with his setup for Saturday after a difficult Friday but unfortunately for the Northern Irishmen, finding pace was just not on the menu today, as he qualified a disappointing P11.
His situation did not improve in the race, unfortunately, due to some issues that were outside his control.
Rea was able to start well and broke into the top ten, but it was in the pitstops where he lost a huge chunk of time. He left the pits after a 1-minute 25-second pitstop. It is mandatory for the riders to make a minimum pit intervention time of 1 minute and 3 seconds, meaning Rea lost 22 seconds to the rest of the field.
He would rejoin in P17, right behind reigning world champion Alvaro Bautista, who remounted after crashing on lap four. And with no movement upfront, that’s where he would eventually finish.
“Frustrating, it feels like we can’t catch a break!,” said Jonathan Rea when speaking to WorldSBK.com. “Since Portimao, we’ve had a lot of curve balls thrown our way but fortunately, we’re still here to keep showing up.”
“Tomorrow we will try some set up change, because I’m really not happy with the bike, the way it’s handling.”
Rea was clear that the issues with the R1 are taking a toll on his confidence, and has forced him to resort towards a less aggressive setup.
“It’s knocking some confidence out of me. We know now, with WorldSBK being so competitive, we need the bike to work, but we also need to feel confident with the bike to push to the maximum.”
“Right now, I feel like I’m just riding, just managing, but that’s not enough to trouble even the top ten in WorldSBK. We need to make a step overnight.”
Rea pinpointed that chatter and vibration is what’s causing him the biggest issues and its a problem that needs to be fixed by tomorrow.
“The biggest issue we have here at Phillip Island is rear chatter and vibration through the bike on the bumps.
“I feel for the guys too; it’s me behind the handlebars but we’ve tried to take a lot of grip out of the bike, different geometries and almost exercised every option but it still remains and whilst that’s there, I don’t have the confidence to push.”
