WorldSBK Argentina: Rea ‘celebrating little wins’ with second

Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea had a fair idea that Alvaro Bautista would probably win race one at Villicum, not that a six-time WorldSBK champion will ever truly give up on anything, we must presume.

Saturday had been a small epic even before we got to the opening race, with Superpole a real knock-down drag out fight between the top three riders - Toprak Razgatlioglu finally winning with a lap that was extra-special.

“Qualifying was amazing,” said Rea. “Although I didn’t get the pole, the lap was top drawer. No mistakes. I got the best of the bike all the weekend. Then just not enough. Toprak did that little bit extra. He found the magic.

“Happy to be in the front,” he said of the opening race action. “I made a good start. I potentially could have led the race at T1 but I let Toprak go ahead. I was kind of just slip streaming him in the back straight. Alvaro came past, and then Toprak went inside. Alvaro dropped back then, and I found myself behind Bassani but just calm, waiting. He was doing a good rhythm at that point of the race. I thought, ‘let’s just stay there,’ but Alvaro came past when I was trying to go through on Bassani. I couldn’t pass anywhere, without stuffing him. It was impossible to pass. So when Alvaro came past, them two or three laps and got his head down, and I was stuck. I just had to really grind him down.

“The tyres were moving a little bit then at the end, I plotted my move. I tried two or three times just parking on the inside of the chicane, but he would get the cutback and just… acceleration. But I felt like he was defending. He started to defend on the rear, so I could concentrate on the exit of the chicane and I found my place into the penultimate corner. It was all I could do, really, defend