252 days. 23 races. Eight rounds. Finally, a race win! Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) took one of the most incredible victories of his career in Race 1 at Most, ending the win drought and taking a first win of the year. In a flag-to-flag wet-starting dry-ending race, Rea used his experience and put it all on the line to storm through from the second row and to put himself in the perfect position early on to deliver 25 points.

With rain falling during the WorldSSP300 race and before WorldSBK Race 1, the track was wet but drying, meaning it would be a lottery on the grid in terms of tyre choice. Early on, Axel Bassani (Motocorsa Racing) got off the line like a rocket and was the early race leader but he had full wet tyres on. Jonathan Rea was on intermediates, but fighting with those who were on wet tyres, well ahead of any other intermediate tyre riders. Taking his time put putting it all on the line, Rea sliced his way through the field and when Bassani came in for a tyre change, he inherited the lead and had over 12 seconds over Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK), who was on inters. Despite the Turkish star getting the gap down to less than five seconds by the end of the race, Rea played a masterstroke for a fine win, managing the situation to perfection.

Speaking about the race itself, Rea was happy to get the 2023-win monkey off his back and use all of his knowledge to bring the #65 to the top step: “I knew that today, sat on the grid in these conditions, it would be a good opportunity to push for a race win. I got a good start and was with the guys on wet tyres at the beginning. I knew the intermediates were the right choice. The gap in the middle of the race was quite big to Toprak and the others. The bike started moving a lot as the setup was quite soft, so I could benefit early on and then manage the race. What can I say? It’s such a nice present for my team, my crew… all their hard work! We look forward to tomorrow now and try to get back on the podium then too.”

It’s a pleasing circularity to be winning in the Czech Republic for Rea, especially at the Autodrom Most, with it being his first at the venue. However, it comes 15 years after his first World Championship win, which came in the Czech Republic but at Brno in WorldSSP. The win also means it’s the 15^th winning WorldSBK season for Rea, whilst the circuit is the 22^nd track he’s won at in the class, also meaning he’s won at every track on the current calendar. It’s the 104^th win for Rea with Kawasaki and his 119^th victory in the class, 60 more than his next rival in the all-time charts, Carl Fogarty.

Continuing to talk about his decision to go on the intermediate tyres, Rea said: “I was quite convinced actually. Even in the garage, I watched the WorldSSP300 race and the guys in front stayed out there on wets and OK, the lap times weren’t great but I could see that even with slick tyres were much more performance in the ‘mizzling’ conditions. So, from that point of view, I was convinced that to get anything out of today, then the right choice was intermediates to generate heat in the tyre. On the sighting lap, I used wet knee sliders and got my knee down a couple of times and felt OK. I convinced myself to put heat in the tyres because the worst thing you can do is not put temperature in the tyre. It worked from Lap 2.”

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