Rea: ‘This kind of run has never happened to me before’
The Ulsterman over the moon after third double of the season.
Jonathan Rea (KRT) scored two convincing WorldSBK wins at Imola and in a strong performance from the Kawasaki Racing Team in general his team-mate Tom Sykes was second in each contest. Rea has now won eight of the ten races run so far in 2015. Rea’s phenomenal Imola performance means he has scored eight wins from ten starts in the FIM Superbike Championship this year, and he now enjoys a huge championship points advantage of 87 points over his nearest challenger.
For Sykes, two second places were his best results of the season putting him up to third in the championship. He is now only 25 points from second place rider Leon Haslam.
Jonathan Rea: “It has been incredible this weekend and I do not know what to say because this kind of run has never happened to me before. I am just enjoying the moment. The key to the weekend was working hard with Pere and Paolo Friday and Saturday to make sure we had a package we could fight with. I was honestly a little bit worried about the six lap first race because we were not really set up to be so strong in the beginning of the race but we were able to win. In race two I watched the gap behind and Arturo was giving me great signals from pitlane. When the gap got to one second I thought ‘keep going and no mistakes’.”
Tom Sykes: “We made some improvements at this round and I am very happy. Jonathan rode a strong race in race two and we had a big gap to the guys behind. In the end I just had to accept that this was our limit today. Jonathan was really strong in some areas and could take an advantage, then I would take some back, but finally it was his day today. The good thing is we have improved from previous events, and from last year, so I think we are heading in the right direction. Still there are some minor things to change but on the whole we have addressed some of our limitations and in Donington at the next round we will keep working. We improved some small things this weekend but small things at this level make an incredible difference. To take the wins would have been better, but I am happy.”
