Reigning World Superbike Champion Jonathan Rea made it three wins from three races so far this season and has ominously warned he expects his race setup for tomorrow’s second encounter in Thailand to be much stronger.
The factory Kawasaki rider was in a race-long dice with team-mate Tom Sykes and despite a small error into the last turn caused by an errant backmarker, Rea was able to hold off the Huddersfield man by two tenths of a second to develop a 23-point lead over Michael Van Der Mark, who was third.
Rea suffered with engine braking problems which not only made his pace a little inconsistent, it also made the rear of his ZX-10R lock into a couple of the slower corners.
“The pace was fast; I did not expect it to be so fast as all weekend we have been slower than last year. So it was a good, fast race. I put my head down and with four laps to go I got a small gap of about 0.7 or 0.8 seconds on Tom. On the final laps I got caught out in the first turn by another rider but it was not so much,” said Rea.
“I had done all my work by then as I had completely emptied my tank with about four laps to go to try and get away. I am a little bit tired now because I went full gas in those last four laps. We were able to capitalise on that work and I feel like I rode for a stronger win than I have had for a long time. Tomorrow, I expect my bike set-up will be much stronger.
"My engine braking locked in three corners, twice at turn eight which forced me off the track which means I had to use a lot of tyre to get back. We have to look into this as this is inconsistent and sometimes took me by surprise. It hasn’t dented my confidence but it’s something we need to get on top of quickly.”
