Kawasaki Racing’s Jonathan Rea fell marginally short of retaining his WorldSBK title despite doing the double in Indonesia on Sunday.

Losing the title he has held for six successive seasons, Rea left Lombok's Mandalika Circuit with two more race wins to his name, equalling the new champion Toprak Razgatlioglu’s total of 13 for 2021. An impressive end due to the conditions faced at the freshly built venue.

“Super day” said Rea. “I’m super content with that. After FP1, we faced some difficulties. To rebound, to come back and win in the wet and win in the dry; super happy. Especially for the Mandalika fans.”

The Northern Irishman said he was satisfied with his season conclusion despite losing the championship, because he had made a promise to himself.

“To get a race two was really good,” he explained. “I was really hoping they would use that period after the heavy downpour to say yes to the track evaluation. When we were going, I was excited to race. Really excited. I tried to put a good pace directly but Toprak and Scott were also very fast. I could understand where they were fast, and then I just rode with nothing to lose and wanted to go out on a high. That was the target this weekend, to go home satisfied with my effort. We can really say that, no regrets this year.

“I rode my maximum with all my heart every race. Very satisfied. Congratulations to Toprak and his team. They’ve done an incredible season. They were very fast, really making me improve as a rider as well, look at myself, evaluate how I can be better, how my bike can be better. So this winter we’re really pushing Kawasaki to improve our ZX-10RR and try to come back with a stronger package for 2022.”

Not having all three final races to try and overturn Razgatlioglu’s points advantage, Rea was asked if he regretted that yesterday the organisers hadn’t prepared the track to race after similar heavy flooding incidents on both Saturday and Sunday.

“Yesterday was a very similar situation to today," he explained. “There was not footage of the track, really. I wasn’t aware of the track conditions. So, it is what it is.

“Of course disappointed, because I lost one more opportunity. Anything can happen in these conditions, but that’s racing. The championship wasn’t lost here in Mandalika because of that race, I lost my championship in the middle of the season with a lot of careless mistakes. So, no regrets.

“Look forward to a little bit of rest now. This championship has been very condensed in a short period of time. A lot of testing, a lot of races, a lot of traveling. Looking forward to a bit of a break before we start testing again in December.”

It was noticeable that although Rea said he was not consulted about trying to run the first race in the afternoon on Saturday, the Championship Director consulted him and many others in pitlane before a decision was made on Sunday, in a similar set of circumstances.

“Yeah, maybe he read something you guys wrote yesterday,” said Rea to the media. “It was nice just to be included, to understand what was going on because yesterday we just seen it was canceled with no warning. But, they rarely make wrong decisions so we’ve got to trust in them that they’ve got our best interest at heart.

“Just yesterday it would have been nice to understand. I wouldn’t say we should race, but we sort of faced the same conditions. In fact, it dried yesterday quite quick. It was dry when we were talking but it is what it is. No regrets.”

Rea stuck the Number 65, his trademark in racing, on his bike with the help of his mechanics trackside before he returned to the pits for the podium ceremony. He said he liked the idea of running it again, if not losing the reason why he will not have a #1 on his numberplate in 2022.

“So refreshing, honestly,” stated Rea. “I said to the guys in the garage, in the middle of the day after I lost, we had nothing prepared. ‘Do you have an old 65 from 2015?’ They said no. So, they made that. I don't know how they made it, they must have had red Motocard stickers left and they made this 65.

“When I seen it on the bike, it reminded me of joining Kawasaki and the change it made in my life. Really happy times, motivating times. Winning my first championship. So, I’m excited to run it next year. Hopefully I only have to use it for one year. It’s a cool number.”

Does Rea, theoretically no longer the main target man, have more or less pressure now?

“I don't know,” he answered. “There’s not too many back-to-back champions. It’s really difficult to win and to stay winning. I know from my first year winning the championship, the amount of media commitment and travel… I arrived in 2016 quite tired of all that. So maybe in this COVID times it’s a little bit different. Just excited for some rest.

“Of course the goal next year is the same. Try to learn from my mistakes a little bit, improve. We really need to improve our bike. Kawasaki need to step up. We know when it’s working it’s one of the most competitive bikes, we just need to polish our weak spots and we should be there again fighting. I enjoyed the fighting again this year, with Scott, with Toprak. It was fun. I like racing like that. So, hopefully many more battles like that in ’22.”

Rea was asked which specific areas the bike needs to improve in and he said, “We need to improve our acceleration and speed. Circuits that we accelerated from first gear this year like Most and Navarra, were so difficult. We would sometimes lose 0.3 in a straight line. That puts me in crisis in a lot of the other lap trying to maintain the lap time. So, that’s the main area for focus.

“We have some areas we can improve in the bike, I think. From an engine point of view, we’re working really hard with the engineers to test that in December really, to evaluate. But let’s see what the calendar says, if we start early or we start a little bit later. Excited to get going and see how we can improve.”

Rea was one of those who thought that the wet weather grip at Mandalika was strong. “Honestly, it’s one of the most grippy circuits in the wet. Maybe the grippiest circuit in the world in the wet condition. Just a problem with some of the drainage off the circuit. In the runoff areas it was quite deep. So, I hope they can address that, or maybe an adjustment of the time table.

“If we did a race at 2pm, we wouldn’t face these conditions. It seems like 3pm we have a huge downpour at this time of the year but they’ve done an incredible job. I’ve seen pictures of this place four weeks ago, and it wasn’t ready and they’ve pulled off a world-class event. So, congratulations to all the team here at the circuit, all the organisers it’s been a really nice experience.”