Jonathan Rea (KRT) completed a confident double win performance at Portimao in the FIM Superbike World Championship, despite starting today’s 20-lap race from ninth place - under the reverse grid rules that come into play for race two this year. Jonathan now has 11 wins for the season and he extended his championship lead to 120 points with another full points score today.

After his first Portimao race win on Saturday, from pole position, it was a more difficult challenge for Rea today. He took only two laps to get into the lead and despite a small electronics glitch at times he carried on at an unmatchable pace to record his 34th win for Kawasaki, becoming the company’s all-time WorldSBK race winner.
 
Rea now has 49 race wins over his entire WorldSBK career and is the third most successful rider in the history of the class. The record sits at 59 wins, set by the legendary Carl Fogarty.
 
Kawasaki scored a full house of wins in every class this weekend – with Rea’s double in WorldSBK, Kenan Sofuoglu in WorldSSP, Toprak Razgatlioglu in STK1000 and Ana Carrasco in WorldSSP300.
 
Jonathan was the lone KRT rider today as his team-mate Tom Sykes was in Barcelona undergoing surgery to repair left hand injuries suffered in a big crash in FP3 on Saturday morning.
 
With Tom unable to score today Jonathan moved 120 points clear in the championship fight, with Sykes second overall and race two faller Chaz Davies third, 135 points from Rea’s lead.
 
Three rounds of the championship remain, the first of them at Magny Cours in France, between 29th September and 1st October.
 

Jonathan Rea, stated:

“I am really happy to win and aside from one little issue it was plain sailing race. I made some tough passes in the first laps to get my track position and as soon as I hit the front I made my rhythm and went away. We had a completely different bike set-up today. I had a lot of feedback from the bike and I was able to ride in my own rhythm but with seven or eight laps to go I had a drop in power in second gear. But as the laps were ticking down I could see that the gap was staying constant, and then I saw Chaz went out and I had some breathing space. We have had our bad luck this year in Donington. The championship lead is massive now and we can go to Magny Cours thinking about trying to win it in France. If we have a solid enough weekend in Magny Cours we can get it done. I said to Pere before the race today that because Kawasaki had won every race at Portimao there was big pressure now. He said that there was no pressure as we had done all the jobs, and I should go out and do what I had to do. I visited the podium in every single race at Portimao to say congratulations to the Kawasaki riders. The most impressive was Ana Carrasco. I have never seen an atmosphere like it and our pit box was like a football match. All the KRT team were up there at the podium, so it was cool to see.”