From the competition level, testing improvements and the return of the famous #65, Jonathan Rea revealed many things in the first of two parts of an eye-opening in-depth interview

The 2022 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship is looking like another mouth-watering prospect, with a new Champion in Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK) ready to defend his crown, whilst the Championship’s most successful rider Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) goes in search of regaining his title. Ahead of the season, we sat down with the six-time World Champion, to get the inside line on his preseason testing schedule, his return to the #65 and what he can learn from 2021.

TESTING, TESTING: improvements made

Now 35, Rea is excited to embark on another season and has already commented that he’s found better performance in braking:

“Right now in January, this is our second test of our preseason and to be honest, we had a good test at Jerez in December where we tried some new items and I felt really good with the bike. The biggest difference is that you can brake how I want to, and I have more confidence in the front of the bike; everything is going on plan.

“Kawasaki have been working really hard in the background and hopefully we can learn some things from this test, go to Portimao, the MotorLand Aragon test before the race weekend and also Montmelo before that, where we will face our main rivals; then we can compare exactly where we are.”

BACK TO THE FUTURE: the #65 returns

The famous #65 will be back on Rea’s bike for 2022, and whilst the change was forced, he relishes the return of his number:

“Changing my number, firstly, is not by choice, but of course, going back to #65… let’s say it is my career number. It gives me a lot of happy memories: I remember the #65 being on the front of my 2015 Kawasaki and it was an incredible moment, and incredible time and it changed my life.

“When I put it back on my bike in Mandalika at the end of last year, I had this nice feeling inside that ‘I’m going back to #65 and this is going to be good.’ For me, the number’s not about pressure and it’s not like when I’m racing that I see it in front of my face! It’s strange to go back to that and I might have to rejig my merchandise a little bit, because after six years, we’d started to incorporate some number ones! It’s a little bit of a change!

GLANCING BACK: 2021’s downfalls, “incredible battles” and 2022’s target of “less mistakes”

“Well of course, 2021 was a challenging year but also, when I look back, it was a fun year,” began a reminiscent Rea. “I really enjoyed 2021 because I learnt a lot, I was still fast, and I still battled… the battles in the races were incredible. For 2022, my target is to make less mistakes. How do we do that? We need to improve the technical package of the bike. First impressions so far are that the bike’s a little bit more user-friendly when I’m riding on my limit.

“I need to try and forget about all my other competitors and the other manufacturers and focus on my job inside Kawasaki. Sometimes last year, that was my biggest mistake: I was looking to the others. It was playing negative doubts in your head like, ‘oh, they are fast’ or ‘there bike is so fast’ but inside here, we have a great bike. Even when we have some limitations or difficulties, I can still compete for winning races. That’s what I need to focus on and bet on myself a bit more.