Rea: WSB remains my priority

In the next five weeks Jonathan Rea will complete over four hours of free practice, seven hours of qualifying and 3 ½ hours of racing in both WSB and MotoGP. Having been drafted in the Repsol Honda MotoGP team to replace Casey Stoner, Rea will be switching between his WSB and MotoGP commitments riding in alternate championships and bikes for five consecutive weekends. 

Speaking to MCN, Rea said: “Doing back to back races for five weekends is going to be super tough and I don’t think I can really estimate how hard it will be. I would normally have two clear days before any race weekend where I try to do as little as possible but straight away that’s not going to happen as I’ll be on the MotoGP bike Tuesday and Wednesday and then go straight to WSB to ride on Friday.”

Rea has already spoken of the difficulty in making the transition between the two classes – citing the character of the tyres as one of the biggest issue. While the Pirelli’s are soft and forgiving the Bridgestone has a much stiffer construction meaning that it has to be fully loaded to exploit the huge grip.

“One good thing about all this riding is that I’m certainly going to be bike fit, but I just need to make sure I do rest and stay fit and healthy because that will be vitally important for me to do well.

“Jumping from bike to bike will be hard. The transition of going from the RCV to the CBR will be easier than going the other way. So far I’ve had about four hours on the RCV and every time I rode it at the test I went quicker but I can’t get confused and ride the bike like a do my Superbike because that doesn’t work. I’m hoping that once I can understand the RCV the knowledge will be in there and I can switch from bike to bike without any problems.

“The other thing I have to remember is that WSB is still my priority, not MotoGP. I’m fighting for wins in WSB and I want to get the best championship position I can where as in MotoGP I’m a stand in rider filling a void left by Casey because of his injury. But saying that the MotoGP ride is also the biggest opportunity of my career and I know that I’m in the spotlight.”