World Superbikes: Jonathan Rea relishing 'underdog' tag in bid to reclaim title from Toprak Razgatlioglu https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/northern-ireland/59843186
I wonder how long he’ll be relishing it for if his bikes not up to speed at R1 lol. He must be confident they’re able to improve on last years offering and catch up with the r1. Still can’t believe sr45 ms on that beemer THIS year
He needs to ride a little more dirty if he wants the 2022 title from Topcat, that's the way modern sportsman play these days.
Absolute personality Vacuum... used to be one of his biggest fans but then I got annoyed with his moaning about the Ducati in 2019 (when Kawasaki have literally been rolling out 'specials' for years) and then read his book which was a yawn fest, then Magnycour this year. I agree Toprak rides over the line sometimes, and equally I can see just how phenomenally hard Jonny is riding that Kawasaki so big respect, but a 7 (or is it 8) time in a row world champ calling himself the underdog is really quite typical of his mentality
That was the same for me, albeit I’ve never been a fan of his, I didn’t mind him though. Then Magny-Cour and that was it, i proper lost all respect from then on in.
Another thing that bugged me, the so called lack of top speed of the Kawasaki, maybe in comparison to the Ducati and Honda but not the Yamaha, yet they mentioned that a few times. I compared speeds throughout the whole season and the average between Toprak and Jonny was so negligible that it’s not even worth mentioning.
Exactly this... Scott Redding had a negligible speed difference also to the Kawasaki and Yamaha, maybe a few K on the very longest straights. In fact the Honda was generally the quickest... So shows it's not what wins races in isolation. Where the Yamaha has been great in every championship is mid-range drive, a combination of engine type and really great rear end setup. Kawasaki need to work on it, they know they do.. but it's not a disadvantage though, as equally when Toprak came to Yamaha he said he had to change his style because he could brake as late and deep as he did on the kwak, he needed to brake and run much higher corner speed. Obv he now does brake really late
