Rea ‘super proud’ of 13th win at Assen, ‘days like this don’t happen often’
More records came the way of six-time WorldSBK champion Jonathan Rea during today’s race one in Assen as he claimed a 13th WorldSBK win at one circuit.
Before Rea’ race one success, the Northern Irishman held a record of 12 wins at two circuits - Portimao and Assen of course.
Rea called it a ‘super proud’ moment, but with two more races still to come this weekend, it’s a number that could very well increase given his race one dominance.
Rea said: "Yeah, I’m very proud! When people say that it makes me feel old though [laughs], but yeah, super proud and I’m very privileged to be in this position, with a great bike, a great team and of course riding at the top of my game.
"So, I'm very proud and looking forward to trying to increase that again tomorrow.
"I love Assen, I love the atmosphere; we have some fans trackside which is great, but hopefully for 2022 we can have a full capacity crowd and get that atmosphere back that we miss inside the paddock."
While Rea won by over three seconds, it was certainly not a margin that could have been anticipated given the early laps.
Rea was embroiled in a three rider tussle with Toprak Razgatlioglu and Scott Redding as the lead changed hands four times in the opening six laps.
However, a mistake from Redding whilst running behind Rea allowed the Kawasaki man to gain a second advantage - one he never came close to losing.
"The race was really solid. I have to thank my team for giving me a really good bike, it was on rails; you know, working really good," added Rea.
"I could do my rhythm and was really strong after I passed Toprak [Razgatlioglu]; kept my head down and tenth by tenth could go away.
"At the end I started to have some vibration on the bike and thought ‘maybe I’m smashing the rear tyre too much’, so I just controlled the gap.
"The really nice thing is when I was controlling the gap it was still increasing, so, days like this don’t happen so often. Physically I felt great."
