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The 2025 WorldSBK season’s races are soon to arrive as the grid have made their final runs at their pair of Friday Free Practice sessions. Saturday will provide the last opportunity for teams like Paul Denning’s Pata Maxus Yamaha crew to make their final adjustments before their Tissot Superpole session in the afternoon. Friday’s Free Practice 1 saw the Pata Maxus Yamaha team only ride with one rider as Johnathan Rea suffered an injury which will see him unfit to compete this weekend in Australia and next round in Portimao.

REA OUT FOR PORTIMAO: The six-time Champion will miss the next two rounds

Rea had been showing sustained signs of improvement this offseason, finishing P1 on a rainy day in Jerez, and consistently much higher up the time sheets than what was seen last year in his 2024 campaign. He was displaying that same speed at Free Practice 1 earlier in the week, up until in his 21^st lap of the session. As he was rounding the Turn 2 Southern Loop, Rea lost control of the bike, launching him high side and off the track before the cartwheeling bike came down on his left foot, fracturing it in several places. Rea was otherwise lucky to not suffer any more serious injuries but, in an interview, Team Principal Paul Denning laid out what this meant for the team.

“I think sad is the word, just sad to be away from the team, away from the bike, and particularly as he was starting to do so well and the flow was coming,” said Denning. “He’s super disappointed but he’s back home. He’s seen a surgeon, and the next course of action will be… I don’t want to share anything that’s medically his private information, but he’s on it and doing everything he can to be ready as soon as he possibly can. Jonathan, all things being equal as we know today, unfortunately has no chance of testing or racing at Portimao, in mid and end of March are the two dates which are just too early for the complexity of the injury to heal, so we’ll have two riders on track but who it will be is very much to be confirmed.”

KEEPING THE BALL ROLLING: Yamaha fight to keep their progress going

Yamaha overall was showing similar signs of improvement, Rea’s teammate, while he hasn’t had the same highly impressive offseason that he had last year, has been placing well in testing apart from a P11 result in Friday’s FP2. On the day, Yamaha’s best performer was Swiss rider Dominique Aegerter (GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team), who finished P6. From Denning’s squad, Andrea Locatelli (Pata Maxus Yamaha) finished in 10^th place with a 1’29.849s but also showing strong race pace in the low 1’30s.

Discussing Yamaha’s opportunities on ‘The Island’, Denning stated: “Phillip Island is always a very special track, it’s very difficult to know where you are technically if you’ve moved forward or not and the winter test didn’t give us a clear indication due to the weather, but certainly on Johnny’s side there was significant progress in many areas, I think we’ll know a lot more when we do the Portimao test and race but the general feeling is that from a data perspective we have taken a step forward in some areas so now we just need to see if that is the case.”

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