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The official race report service of Kawasaki Racing Team.

9 June 2018

Rea Takes 60th Win And New Record

Jonathan Rea (KRT) won the opening WorldSBK race at the Automotodrom Brno and in doing so smashed his way to a new record total of 60 race wins in his WorldSBK career, surpassing the 59 race victories taken by Carl Fogarty. Tom Sykes (KRT) finished third in today’s race, having extended his Superpole record to 45 earlier in the day.

Triple World Champion Jonathan Rea was in imperious form in taking his record number of race wins to a new high. It was not an easy task after having to face three starts from second place on the grid, in a race that was twice delayed and then finally run over 16 laps, not the planned 18. A red flag for a damaged section of air fence and then a false launch after the starting lights developed a fault, saw the race finally underway at 13.40.
 
Once off and running for real Rea put as much space as possible between him and the pursuing pack, in what turned out to be warm and dry conditions at the 5.403km long Automotodrom Brno. Jonathan took his historic 60th win by a margin of 5.382 seconds over Marco Melandri, who finished just under two seconds ahead of Tom.
 
Starting from his third pole position of the season, Sykes was the closest challenger to Rea in the early part of the 16-lap race. Tom held off all the challengers behind except Melandri to record his 106th career podium visit, and his sixth top-three finish of the season.
 
Today marks the exact halfway point of the 2018 season, with 13 of the 26 races planned for 2018 now completed. In the championship Jonathan leads Chaz Davies by 81 points – 270 to 189 - with Tom back into third place today on 179 points.
 
Donington podium finisher Toprak Razgatlioglu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) started the race 15th on the grid after Superpole, but finished tenth, leading home a running flush of Kawasakis down to 13th place. Yonny Hernandez (Team Pedercini Racing Kawasaki) was 11th, Leandro Mercado (Orelac Racing VerdNatura Kawasaki) 12th and Roman Ramos (Team GoEleven Kawasaki) 13th.
 
The second Brno race will take place on Sunday the 10th of June, at 13.00 local time in the Czech Republic.
 
Jonathan Rea, stated: “I am really happy. Of course it is hard to get super-ecstatic and go and start celebrating, although it is worth celebrating being the winningest rider in WorldSBK history, but we have another race to do tomorrow. I feel really fortunate to have this opportunity, riding a great bike and to be here every weekend. To win the 60th race in that fashion, being dominant, was really nice. I could ride to my pit board at some points, which was also nice. It was a huge team effort, especially after coming here to test after Assen and before Imola, because it was such a tight schedule. It made yesterday less stressful because the conditions were not good for anybody. We were not so worried, because we had done two full days at Brno where we had evaluated all set-ups. We put it together from there.”
 
Tom Sykes, stated: “The stops and starts were not ideal today and we have to be so careful not to burn the clutch. It was a bit of a scrappy start procedure but we eventually got underway in safe conditions and we made the best of our situation. I tried to go initially with Jonathan but I just could not get the bike through the middle of the turns, and gave away too much on the cutback. The front was under-steering and in hot conditions it looks like everybody was struggling. I was just following the front all the way around turn one and turn four and had a lot of warnings in that race, but we got the feedback through the Showa suspension and took a third place. It isn’t a perfect scenario but it is a lot better than some of the other guys, so we have to be grateful.”
 
2018 KRT Rider Statistics
 
Jonathan Rea: World Champion 2015, 2016 & 2017
2018: Races 13, Wins 6, Podiums 11, Superpoles 2
Career Race Wins: 60 (45 for Kawasaki)
Career Podiums: 123 (81 for Kawasaki)
Career Poles: 16 (12 for Kawasaki)
 
Tom Sykes: World Champion 2013
2018: Races: 13, Wins 1, Podiums 6, Superpoles 3
Career Race Wins: 34 (34 for Kawasaki)
Career Podiums: 106 (105 for Kawasaki)
Career Poles: 45 (45 for Kawasaki)
 
5 x Riders’ Championships (Scott Russell 1993, Sykes 2013, Rea 2015, 2016 & 2017), 1 x EVO Riders’ Championship (David Salom 2014)
3 x Manufacturers’ Championships (Ninja ZX-10R 2015 & 2016, Ninja ZX-10RR 2017)
3 x Teams’ Championships (KRT/Provec Racing 2015, 2016 & 2017)
 
Kawasaki FIM Superbike World Championship Statistics
Total Kawasaki Race Wins: 116 – third overall
Total Kawasaki Podiums: 366 – third overall
Total Kawasaki Poles: 78 – second overall
 
 
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