Dominating the Superbike World Championship (WSBK) for the fifth year running is Kawasaki Racing Team (KRT) WorldSBK and five-time WSBK champion Jonathan Rea. Despite coming into the WSBK round at Magny-Cours, France, with a 61 point deficit in the riders’ standings, Rea took the challenge to rival Alvaro Bautista of Aruba.it Racing-Ducati and clinched the champion’s trophy with two rounds remaining in the season.
This makes Rea, who hails from Northern Ireland, the undisputed king of WSBK. Across his 11-year WSBK career, Rea now leads the field in terms of championship wins, race wins and race points.
With 274 starts, Rea has appeared on the podium 162 times, standing on the top step on 83 occasions. His nearest challenger, 90’s racing legend Carl Fogarty who raced for Ducati, has 59 wins to his credit.
In his five years with Kawasaki, Rea started 134 races with KRT and finished on the podium 120 times, a rostrum appearance average of 89%. Rea also holds the record for number of fastest laps in WSBK, beating Noriyuki Haga.
For total career points, Rea stands a clear 249 points ahead of second placed Troy Corser, 4,270 points to 4,021. Rea and KRT look to be indomitable going into the 2020 WSBK season and interestingly, should Rea finish in the next round in Argentina with points in both races, it will mark the 200th consecutive race in the points for Kawasaki.
Photographs by Half Light Photographic.
Looking to sell your car? Sell it with Carro.
Next year Johny Rea / Kawa package could face their strongest challenge to date. Ducati Corse will be back with a vengeance with their powerful V4 R bike and all-Brit rider lineup of Scott Redding and Chaz Davies. And fans will be mostly curious about the all-new bike to be fielded by Honda next year, rumoured to be the most powerful in-line 4 screamer engined bike on the market , or will it be a V4 that the fans had been yearning for ? Cant wait to see the bike sometime later this year..
Hail King Rea!