New World Order starts soon for Rea

At the presentation of the official KRT squad in Barcelona recently new boy Jonathan Rea understood the scale of the challenge ahead of him, having moved to Kawasaki after almost an entire road race career with Honda.

Poor winter test weather did not help his cause to start with. “My bike is really competitive but it has taken me a long time to really understand the bike,” said Rea. “When we had the two dry testing days in Jerez my team and I worked really hard changing the bike to understand all the different possibilities. I think now we are prepared to go to PI; I don’t think we are completely ready to be there, but I think after the test hopefully we can give a good account of ourselves in the first race.”

Asked on stage about his team-mate and that only one of them can come out on top in their new rivalry, he said, “The guy next door in the garage is probably the guy who wants to kick your ass the most. We have a high level of mutual respect for each other and I think as long as we keep doing a good job for ourselves and Kawasaki; then who knows? There is only one winner but we are both professional and I am looking forward to the battle.”

Rea is as ready as weather conditions and lost track time can make him, but he is realistic of where he is on his learning curve on the Ninja ZX-10R right now. “You can always do more to be honest but everyone is in the same boat,” he stated. “It wasn’t a perfect winter for anybody. We just have to see. It is an exciting part of the year where you have unknowns, especially with me moving to a new team, new bike, new regulations – it is all exciting.”

Many see this as Rea’s best and first real chance of the championship, and he is not lacking in desire to start the season well. “This is the most motivated I have ever been,” said Rea. “In previous years I have had to motivate myself in the off season because I have known the package was always going to be the same. We might get excited about minor adjustments but for me this is a huge change so it has been easy to motivate myself over the off-season. I have had one of the strongest off seasons I have ever had, from a preparation point of view, and not having to come off the back of an injury, or anything. I have put the time to good use this year. I couldn’t be in any better shape. We could always do with some more time on the bike but we will see. I will not set too many targets yet until we see where we stack up.”