Rea on record 60th win: I feel really fortunate

Jonathan Rea has relished making World Superbike history with a trademark dominant display to take his 60^th career race win to surpass Carl Fogarty’s all-time record.

The triple World Superbike champion kept his cool after two race restarts in the Brno opener to charge ahead of pole-sitter Tom Sykes on the opening lap before gradually building a lead over his chasing rivals to storm to a historic victory.

Having equalled Fogarty’s 59 career World Superbike wins in race two at Imola, Rea clinched his 60^th win in the series in style at the Czech Republic circuit and concedes he feels very fortunate to have enjoyed such a dominant spell in the series since joining Kawasaki in 2015. Rea has taken 45 of his wins with the Japanese manufacturer (the other 15 wins came with Honda).

“I am really happy. Of course it is hard to get super-ecstatic and go and start celebrating, although it is worth celebrating being the winningest rider in WorldSBK history, as we have another race to do tomorrow,” Rea said.

“I feel really fortunate to have this opportunity, riding a great bike and to be here every weekend. To win the 60th race in that fashion, being dominant, was really nice. I could ride to my pit board at some points, which was also nice.

“It was a huge team effort, especially after coming here to test after Assen and before Imola, because it was such a tight schedule. It made yesterday less stressful because the conditions were not good for anybody.

“We were not so worried, because we had done two full days at Brno where we had evaluated all set-ups. We put it together from there.”

Rea has also extended his World Superbike championship lead to 81 points over nearest rival Aruba.it Racing Ducati’s Chaz Davies at the midway stage in the 2018 campaign as he looks to secure a fourth consecutive world title which would see him draw level with Fogarty for the most championships in history.