Kawasaki Racing Team pilot Jonathan Rea completed his second triple podium weekend of the 2023 WorldSBK season by achieving two third places on the last day of action at Magny Cours. His teammate Alex Lowes was unable to complete the ten-lap Superpole race in the morning and withdrew from Race Two with a left knee issue.
The opening race on Sunday in France was the Tissot-Superpole sprint, with ten laps. Rea and Lowes were running just behind the top three battle when the two official Ducati riders collided and Michael Ruben Rinaldi crashed.
Jonathan was in second at that point as Alvaro Bautista had lost his position on track, but he couldn’t catch eventual race winner Toprak Razgatlioglu. Rea would ultimately finish in third, while Bautista reclaimed second place.
The fight for the podium places between Rea and his old rival Toprak Razgatlioglu was more intense than ever in the restart. Bautista had a perfect race to win the race, but Rea and Razgatlioglu attacked at every opportunity to try to finish second. Razgatlioglu ended up in second place and Rea was a close third.
Three podium finishes for Rea made Magny Cours his second best weekend of the season and solidified his position in third place in the championship. He is now 34 points ahead of fourth-placed Andrea Locatelli.
In the championship standings, Bautista has 467 points, Razgatlioglu 410 and Rea 290. Lowes is eighth with 129 points. The next round takes place at Motorland Aragon, between September 29 and October 1.Jonathan Rea, declared: “I am very happy to have achieved three podiums this weekend. On Friday I felt I had a good pace, but then we didn’t go in the right direction with the setup. In Race One and even in the Superpole Race, I was happy with the bike setup, but I couldn’t ‘dance’. In Race Two, I felt much better from the start. I felt I could do everything to stay with Álvaro, but he was on a different level. In the first part of the final race, he was making a lot of mistakes, but just keeping the lap time. Once he cleaned up his driving style, he disappeared. There was really nothing I could do, so I was very happy that Toprak wasn’t passing me. I could see on my pit board that he was behind me, so I thought maybe today my pace was good. In the last few laps, I was fighting hard with him – and enjoying it! Toprak in Magny Cours is very strong, so I think that shows we had a positive trend during the weekend, improving the bike. I was able to brake very well and we had good mechanical traction.”
