Tuesday Conversation: Jonathan Rea

Despite being a rookie to World Superbike in 2009, Jonathan Rea wasted no time asserting himself as a force to be reckoned with, taking two wins and eight podiums in an action-packed season of racing. His strong performances earned him the lead-rider position at Hannspree Ten Kate Honda, and as the year progressed, he only got quicker. We caught up with the 22-year-old Rea—sure to figure prominently in the 2010 World SBK season—at the end of today’s post-season testing at Portimao.

RRX: Growing up, how did you get started in motorcycle racing, and when did you decide to make road racing a career?
Jonathan Rea: I started by racing motocross for years and years, then in 2003 I made the switch to road racing as part of the Red Bull Rookies 125 program in the UK. After that, I graduated to Supersport directly, and then on to Superbike. After my first year in superbike with the sponsors I had, it was pretty good: I could—without having a big salary from the manufacturer—go to the race meeting and live life as pro. In 2006 with Red Bull and Honda UK, I was able to make road racing my job. I finished fourth in British Superbikes, did the following year with HM Plant, and then moved to the world championships. So, I’d say my career more or less began in ’06, because in ‘03, ‘04, and ‘05 I was still rushing home on Sunday nights to get to work early on Monday morning as an engineer in a factory. It was a bit of a normal life I had back then.

In BSB, you came fourth in 2006 and second in 2007. You then turned down a WSB ride with the factory Xerox Ducati team in favor of a Supersport deal with Ten Kate, with the option of moving to Superbike. What was your reasoning behind that decision?
Basically, there was a third-party guy acting on my behalf, if you like, and I was getting mixed information from him, and also from Ducati. I was trying to get something on paper to see what the deal was all about, and it sounded a bit frosty around the edges. Then Ten Kate came with a dream opportunity: one year in Supersport and two years in the World Superbike Championship, which sounded really, really great. They had just come off the back of winning the championship with James [Toseland], and the bikes seemed good. The Supersport bike for sure had a solid record, so I stepped into the Supersport championship with little pressure, and a chance to learn the circuits. Also, I saw that as having a proper crack at the world championship, but I ended up coming second, because I was torpedoed in the penultimate round at Magny-Cours.

Your rookie WSB year has been a good one, especially the latter part. How do you feel about your season overall?
It’s gone good, better than I expected a little bit, but we were quite inconsistent at the beginning of the year. When I jumped on the superbike, arguably, I wasn’t right in the zone, but also the bike has come on in leaps and bounds. Everything I said we should change, we’ve changed it, and we’ve gone faster. With electronics, fuel mappings, traction control settings, and suspension, the team was really geared around me to take the bike forward, so that was really good. The best part of my season has been seeing how much potential the bike has, and week after week we come out stronger, and that’s always been good.

You’ve had some really epic battles with other WSB riders this season. Which riders do you consider the most difficult to pass and most enjoy racing with?
Well, Biaggi is always really hard to pass because the Aprilia has such top-end speed. We are always praying for him to get a bad start, because most of the passing is done on the straights, and it’s so fast. If he gets a good start, he’ll be up there in the mix.

This year, to be honest, I enjoy racing with everyone! Fabrizio and Biaggi are quite aggressive; Ben [Spies] on the other hand is quite smooth, but very determined on the bike. Haga is Mr. Smooth as well, but he’s not scared to ride, like, one millimeter off your back tire, so sometimes that’s intimidating. But all the guys are professionals, and everyone, to ride at the level we’re riding at, has to ride on the limit. Sometimes mistakes happen. For example, with Fabrizio crashing into Spies and taking him out as part of his crash, that wasn’t on purpose or anything. These things happen when you’re riding on the limit, and unfortunately that is part and parcel with the job, really.

Ten Kate made a switch to Ohlins suspension mid-season. How did that come about, and what kind of difference has it made in the bike?
Well, with the WP suspension we were quite at our limit of progression, and we’ve been going faster with the Ohlins stuff, and I don’t think we’ve reached our limit yet. We’re improving it further and further. Also, the Ohlins research and development is much better than WP; they were slowing everything down and Ohlins are continuing to strive forward, and it is much better to be part of that. When we went back-to-back on both suspensions, we were faster straight-away with the Ohlins, so it was quite a no-brainer to move over.

Has it fixed the chatter issue the bike had in the beginning of the year?
It wasn’t more or less all chatter, to be honest; I didn’t complain about chatter as much as Checa or Kiyonari. It just created a better balance of the bike, and a better shock feeling. It also had a better stroke feeling in the front as well. I felt the suspension worked in all areas of the stroke as opposed to maybe three hard spots on the WP stuff. [The Ohlins] was much more progressive, and gave me much more feeling and confidence when I rode.

You seem to slide the rear a bit more than most. What’s your approach to bike setup?
I’m not really fussy, to be honest. I know what feeling I want, but I couldn’t tell you if that is hard or soft. For sure, superbikes aren’t like MotoGP bikes, so you can’t ride them as rigid. For example, Carlos is quite on the hard side with everything, and Kiyo almost uses rain settings on the bike in the dry. I’m somewhere in between.

But my riding style, I always give 110 percent every time I ride. There’s never another guy out on the circuit trying harder than I am. Sometimes with superbike racing, you can never achieve the perfect setup, so sometimes you have to ride around problems. If the grip levels are dropping, then yeah, the rear is going to slide, and also with the Pirellis the front slides a lot as well. It’s good fun, but we always are trying to be perfectly in-line with the wheels, and going really fast, but that’s not always achievable.

You’re in the middle of post-season testing at Portimao right now. How’s that going so far?
It’s going really well; I’ve gone 1.4 seconds faster than race pace already. I ended the test today fastest by two or three tenths from Fabrizio. We get Ohlins support, but nothing happens in the Ohlins factory. Everything is set up by Andreani Group, which is an independent crew that looks after our suspension. We got some Haga-spec forks, if you like, which are quite old when compared to the stuff that Spies, Corser, and Biaggi use, but we went quite fast on that straight-away. Today we also got some prototype ’10 suspension pieces, and that was quite good; better than what we had. Otherwise, we’re just making our way through some electronic changes, some brake pads, and trying to find a good balance for the bike.

Is there any particular improvement you’ve targeted for the off-season or next year, either with yourself or the bike?
Well, from my part, my improvement just keeps happening, and with the bike, we have to work hard to get little bits and pieces out of it. I think that the focal point is going to be deceleration; getting the bike into the corner really smoothly and steadily, and that transfer onto the throttle again. So that’s what we’ll work on. The other factories aren’t going to go to sleep over the winter, so we need to work hard as well to keep our momentum going.

Had you been to the States prior to the WSB round at Miller Motorsports Park this year?
No, I’ve been to America for my first time this year, and I really enjoyed it when I went to Salt Lake City. I was so excited about being in America; I had to do the Vegas thing, and I was to fly home in two days. So, right after Race 2, I hopped in my hire-car and went to Vegas for the night, and that was quite a fun time. America is somewhere I would like to spend a bit more time, especially because the motocross scene out there is massive. I’d like to go out maybe to California and do a lot of riding out there at some of the cool tracks.

What are the road race fans like in Northern Ireland—do you get recognized by strangers back home?
Yeah, because it’s such a small country and motorcycling is such a big part of everyone’s life. You know, Joey Dunlop was a massive name back in the day and he was quite a humble guy and he came from home. It seems that everyone who comes from Northern Ireland are quite grounded as people, and no one really tends to blow smoke up your ass. This weekend, the amount of Northern Ireland flags around the track in Portugal was unbelievable. They’re not just all for me—also Eugene Laverty is from there—but it’s really nice. I get noticed all the time in my town, because it’s pretty popular as a sport back home.

Aside from testing, do you have any plans for the off-season?

As soon as this test finishes tomorrow, I’m off on a flight to Australia for three weeks. I’m going to do a little fun race out there, and a few weeks of holidays. I also run a motocross team, and so we’ve got supercross in the off-season to attend. I’m looking forward to that, getting back on my motocross bike, and having some fun. Also, I’ll enjoy just catching up with friends and family back home. We have a test in December as well, and then back to Portimao at the end of January, so we don’t really have so much time to let our hair down. I’m a bit of a fan of eating junk food, but I think I’m going to have to pack that this winter, because I don’t have enough time to work off the four kilos that I was looking forward to putting on.