Magny-Cours WSBK: Damage limitation for Rea

Jonathan Rea and his Kawasaki Racing Team pulled off an exercise of damage limitation in today’s World Superbike race at Magny-Cours to come back with a nice points finish.

The championship leader finished fourth, just one place and three points behind his title challenger and team-mate Tom Sykes.

Rea, who had started from pole, led into the first corner but was soon passed by Sykes. He followed him for the rest of the race, even pitting to change tyres at exactly the same time, and then followed him over the line after the pair enjoyed a strong finish.

“It felt like follow the leader because at the beginning I had much more pace but I didn’t know how the race was going to pan out,” he said.

“When I saw the tyre wraps come off and that Chaz was on an intermediate I knew that was a good decision. When I came back to the grid I mentioned that but in my position it’s more important to be conservative on days like this because it’s so easy to lose a lot of points.

“I did what we had to do, we lost three points in the end. A little bit of this was because I made a bit of a mistake in pits, I asked for an intermediate front but wasn’t sure about the rear tyre. In the end Pere (Riba) made the decision for me to put an intermediate and an intermediate to be safe.

“But I struggled a bit with grip a little bit and turning so tomorrow I think all things will be level because there’s no forecast for rain so we’ll see.

“It’s damage limitation in a race like this. I was more nervous than ever because we’re getting only five more races of the season and we don’t need to make a gamble. I understand the other riders need to make some gambles but for me it was a no risk strategy and in the end we only finished one position behind Tom.

“We’re in the nice position where we can follow him home every race now but I think the plan is that when I feel good with the bike is to win when we can win and when we can’t we have to be a bit more clever than the rest.”