Rea: 'I reached my limit, I did my best and was beaten by better people'

The Kawasaki rider has been in fine form throughout the 2022 WorldSBK campaign, winning five races during the opening three rounds, however, Rea has had no answer for Alvaro Bautista and Toprak Razgatlioglu in recent rounds. 

In fact, race three of the Portimao weekend marked the 18th consecutive race where Rea has failed to take top spot. 

• Portimao WorldSBK Race (2) Results: Bautista denies Razgatlioglu hat-trick 
• Bautista: 'Rea struggling to push like Razgatlioglu'

An alarming stat which has led to him falling 82 points down on Bautista in the championship standings with just three rounds remaining.

While Bautista and Razgatlioglu have been a step ahead of Rea in recent rounds, there’s arguments to be made that Yamaha and Ducati in particular have more pace. 

Hinting at that being the case post-race, Rea was again at his very limit in Portimao which was only good enough for third in all three races and thus not the result he would have wanted.

"I reached my limit. “In fact, when I was leading, I slowed down to save my rear tyre. So I didn't take that much risk," said Rea. 

"But when Alvaro overtook me in the second main race, he was very quick. I was able to disturb Toprak's rhythm a bit, but when my rear tyre wore out it was over. 

"I have no regrets, I did my best and was beaten by better people. It's frustrating how far behind we are - but that's the reality."

"We've taken a step forward compared to last year, [but] the pace is much higher," continued Rea. "But that's not enough to keep up with Alvaro and Ducati. 

"We've also gotten a lot better on the brakes. Last year I wasn't even close to Toprak and couldn't even think about slowing him down. 

"I managed to do that a couple of times here, which wasn't bad. Our weak point is controlling the engine power when the rear tire is going flat. And on the straight we're a lot slower than Bautista. I have nothing left and fight with all weapons."

While Rea managed to extend his title challenge against Razgatlioglu to the final round in 2021, that appears to be unlikely this season as Bautista and Razgatlioglu have dominated every race since Estoril. 

Alex Lowes in awe of the pace shown by three WorldSBK title contenders

On the outskirts of the victory fight for most of the weekend, Lowes had the pace to remain in the battle early on before losing speed towards mid-race distance, particularly in the two feature length races. 

Speaking about his races and the speed shown by Bautista, Razgatlioglu and Rea, Lowes added: "To be honest, I felt quite good in that last race today. We made a small change on the front of the bike. Apart from when I had a fuel tank of fuel, I was struggling with the front locking a little bit but apart from that, I felt really good. 

"But unfortunately, my pace was not as fast as the guys at the front.  That was incredible the pace they had. I was still able to make low 1‘41 on lap 15, 16 and I was losing ground so respect to them! 

"The tyres still haven’t changed much since last year and the pace was really, really impressive. I missed a little bit to go with these guys but a great weekend, a great qualifying, a good race one, Superpole Race was strong. 

"I was really close to and battling with Jonathan. Like I said I missed a little bit at the start of the last race with a fuel tank of fuel. And at the end I was coming back towards Michael but we ran out of laps."