Jonathan Rea's 2025 World Superbike Championship is underway after missing the first three rounds of the season.

After nearly three months, Jonathan Rea made his return to the World Superbike Championship at the Cremona Circuit.

The six-time World Superbike Champion fractured several metatarsal bones in his left foot on the first day of the Phillip Island Test in February.

After a long recovery period and missing the first three rounds of the 2025 season, Rea was back on track on Friday for the Italian WorldSBK Round.

It was a difficult return for Rea as in Free Practice Two, he finished the session in 21st place on the timesheets. The Northern Irishman set a best lap time of 1:30.547 and was 1.297 seconds off of Nicolo Bulega's best lap time.

"It’s been a difficult day but firstly, my foot feels fine riding," Rea said after making his return to World Superbikes.

"I had a couple of areas where my foot was in the wrong position, and when I ride with my big toe on the foot peg, it feels quite painful, but generally it’s fine.

"Of course, it’s been a long time off the bike, and physically, I didn’t feel amazing. However, I expected that to an extent and need some race fitness back. The R1 is quite different to when I last rode it and we worked through FP1 and FP2 with the same tyre setups to find the rhythm, and still I didn’t feel fully comfortable.

"We made some changes but nothing has really ticked the box yet to let me stop the bike in the way I really want to, so that’s the focus for tonight to give me more confidence to reach the apex.

"We’ll try to make a step tomorrow but, even if it’s really tough, it’s great to be back with the team and re-starting the journey to being fully competitive."