Jonathan Rea WorldSBK return “tougher than I expected”

The long-awaited return to racing for Jonathan Rea at the Italian WorldSBK was a “tougher weekend than I expected,” according to the Northern Irish rider.

This weekend’s WorldSBK Italian Round was Rea’s first World Superbike event since the Spanish Round at Jerez last October, the six-time champion having suffered multiple fractures in his left foot while testing at Phillip Island in February.

The two-and-a-half months without riding a WorldSBK machine had not only allowed Rea’s foot to heal but also for his race fitness to erode.

That, combined with a relatively unfamiliar Yamaha R1 with the new Superconcession chassis, resulted in a weekend without points for Rea, who was ultimately pleased to have been able to ride after such an amount of time off and to complete the weekend.

“It’s been a tougher weekend than I expected, but I knew we had to start somewhere,” Rea said after Race 2 at Cremona.

“The target of the weekend in my own mind was just to try and commit to racing, get passed fit and do my best to complete all three races with no mistakes.

“We completed that target, of course I wasn’t as competitive as I wanted to be, but considering I was only fully weight-bearing and walking without my air boot three weeks ago I can accept that.”

Rea said that his physical struggles were more in his upper body than in the foot he injured in Australia.

“Coming back at Cremona, a track I didn’t race at last year and also super physical, I suffered more in my upper body than I did in my foot to be honest, because I was compensating quite a lot riding with my arms instead of my legs,” he explained.

“Even though the bike didn’t feel perfect, the team has done everything to try to make me more comfortable and encourage me through this difficult weekend.

“I have no doubt better days are coming! It was always going to be a process whether I came back here or came back in Most, so [this is] ‘weekend one’ and hopefully we can get on a roll forward from this point.”

Locatelli: “A really difficult weekend for us

While Andrea Locatelli was able to finish in the top-10 in both Sunday races following his crash in Race 1, the Italian was left to conclude that his home round had been “really difficult”.

“It was a really difficult weekend for us, unfortunately we did not take any good results here in Cremona,” he said.

“We were fighting to start from further back on the grid – but it does not matter about this because also when I made a great start in Race 2 it was difficult to stay there.

“We need to look at what happened and how to improve because I was fighting a lot with a big, big vibration this morning and all Sunday.

“Now, I am looking forward and don’t think too much about the missed opportunity – it was a big shame to not be faster, after the good events like Portimao and Assen, I was expecting that also here we could be fast.

“Sometimes in the racing life this happens!”