SBK Magny Cours, Rea: “It’s not easy to be the only Kawasaki up front”

For Jonathan Rea and his Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10RR, the French race weekend at Magny-Cours started with first place in a damp FP1 and third place in the afternoon’s second session, after a day the rider referred to as having its ‘highs and lows’.

“I struggled during the final phase of braking and corner entry. The first sector is particularly tough for our bike and through turn 1 it’s not easy to hold the right line without suffering any chattering, but all in all it’s not been bad in terms of overall position, and we’ll try to improve for Saturday”, commented the current world champion at the end of day one.

“It won’t be easy to choose the right tyre for the race but I’ve realised that, compared to last year’s bike, the new Ninja behaves in a very different way, but you can still exploit it. It’s not easy to be the only Kawasaki up front of course, but Alex Lowes has been injured and Yamaha has many strong riders that can fight us, so it’s ok and we’ll try to do what we can with what we have”, adds the number 1.

Rea: "Racing in Argentina? It would be frustrating with quarantine"

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As for the possibility of racing in Argentina, Rea doesn’t sound particularly enthusiastic: “I don’t want to comment because it’s not down to me of course. But it would be frustrating to have to quarantine before being able to go out, particularly those of us coming from the UK, but Dorna will be the ones to decide. And the same goes for the Indonesian round of course”.

Translated by Heather Watson

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