On paper, his sixth place finish in Estoril World SBK Race 1 was arguably one of Jonathan Rea’s best rides on a Yamaha R1, but he subsequently revealed he had been dealing with a brake issue that sapping his confidence.
Rea had a good start in the race and was chasing Alvaro Bautista for third place, but he fell back midway through as he had already had a brake problem in FP3 which was thought to have been fixed.
“I felt really good at the beginning of the race,” Jonathan Rea said in an interview with WorldSBK.com after Race 1 in Estoril.
“Alvaro (Bautista) made a few mistakes, but I was able to run very clean through most of the corners, but from the exit of the last corner to Turn 1 I lost a little bit.
“But in sectors two and three it went well and after that I was almost in slipstream.
“But there was a big moment in the middle of the race where the lever went back to the bar in Turn 1 and that allowed Alex (Lowes) and Andrea (Locatelli) to arrive and they passed me on the straight the next lap.”
“So I ran into a brake problem halfway through the race. I had this problem this morning. I thought replacing the disc would fix the problem, but the problem showed up again so I really need to see what’s going on.”
The brake issue wasn’t the only area Rea was looking to improve on Sunday, but it was clearly the one he was most concerned about.
“I think it leans too far back,” Ray said of the overall balance of the bike.
“When you start to let go of the brakes, the front pops out and sits on the rear, and then the rear rotates a lot, so you end up using the rear tire quite a bit.
“So I think we can improve that area and understand what’s going on with the brakes.
“To be honest, it’s scary when you reach 320 km/h (198 mph) (first turn) and you don’t know if the lever is more or less where you expected it to be.
“That’s why I went to the gravel this morning.
“So if we can resolve the confidence issue later in the race, we know the brakes will be fine and we should be even stronger.”
Brake issues and balance aside, Ray was happy with his bike’s performance.
“The bike wasn’t too bad,” he said.
“I think the bike didn’t roll amazingly after the grip dropped, especially in the last long corner. And mechanical traction is still something we need to focus on.”
“The other bikes were good everywhere, so I enjoyed it. It was really nice to be able to fight for the top five.”
“Thank you Brega.”
Rea’s strong performance of 6th place in qualifying put him in a position to fight for the top five.
The Pata Yamaha rider improved his time, benefiting from Nicolo Brega’s traction. The Ducati rider himself was able to lap in the 1:34 range and was the only rider other than Toprak Razgatlioglu to do so in Superpole, but Rea explained that he was mainly looking for the Italian’s help on the straights.
“I’m really grateful to Nicolo (Bulega), but you can’t beat the bushes. If you turn the page, we’re at the top of the speed trap,” said the six-time World Superbike champion.
“So (…) every little advantage you get in the slipstream is very useful. When you’re talking about tenths of a second or even a hundredth of a second in a superpole, everything counts.
“So I’m really thankful that I didn’t bother him and I stayed far enough away to not pull him back down the straight and he did a pretty clean lap.
“Starting from there made my day very fulfilling. After a good start, the Yamaha R1 pulled away from the line and I was already in a good track position.
“On the restart, Roca (Andrea Locatelli) actually passed me in Turn 1, but I did a good first lap and then with Alvaro I gripped every last corner and got there and tried to get sucked in and then I just did what I had to do.
“We had a little bit of trouble with a few things in the second half of the race, but hopefully we can sort that out tomorrow.”