WSBK: 10 in a row for dominant Rea in Argentina

Jonathan Rea dominated World Superbike’s first visit to Argentina, taking a double win at the San Juan Villicum circuit. Despite much questioning whether the circuit would be ready in time, the inaugural South American WSBK round went ahead and it was yet again the Ballymena-man who took honours.

In race one, he dominated, taking the win by almost 10 seconds ahead of Marco Melandri and Toprak Razgatlioglu – a surprise package in 3rd. Race two went pretty much the same way, although Xavi Fores led for the first eight laps of the race. On lap nine however, Rea made his move and pulled away from the Spaniard to take another convincing win. Fores was 2nd and Melandri was 3rd.

“It is really special to come to a new track, where everyone starts from zero, and be able to take the same kind of results. To be fast in the hot conditions and keep our tyre that was the key to the race. It was probably the hardest race win from the third row of the grid. If I went off line to pass, I could not be creative with my line choices. Everybody was pretty much on the same line so the passes had to be set up a few corners in advance,” said Rea, commenting on the new track.

“Once I settled into my rhythm I was able to clock off the lap times and pick off riders one by one. When I got clear track to Fores I tracked him down quite fast, but then there was the matter of passing him. Today has been difficult because I caught some kind of virus on Saturday night. I was ill all night from one o’clock until five in the morning. It was good to have the race at 4pm because most of the day I have been sleeping in the cabin, regaining energy!”

Rea now has 10 wins and will look to make it 12 in two weeks’ time in Qatar at the Losail International Circuit.