Pata Yamaha boss talks Jonathan Rea's 'challenging' start to 2024 WorldSBK season
10/04/2024 09:49
Pata PROMETEON Yamaha boss Paul Denning believes Jonathan Rea isn't far from finding that 'last bit of confidence and trust' to get both himself and the team back fighting at the sharp end of the 2024 WorldSBK field.
The Ulsterman has endured a troubled start to his new chapter with Yamaha following his switch from Kawasaki - with whom he achieved a record six WorldSBK titles - over the winter, taking until the sixth race of the season in Barcelona to get his first points on the board.
The opening two events, which Denning concedes have been 'extremely disappointing', are in stark contrast to both Rea and Yamaha's success rate in recent years, the former having smashed most WorldSBK records with career victory tally of 119 wins and the latter winning the riders' title with Toprak Razgatlioglu in 2021.
However, after Rea's confidence was dented by a tumultuous Phillip Island opener - which concluded with a high-speed crash in Race 2 and a failure to score any points over the weekend - Denning admits it has been a slog to rediscover his comfort zone on the Yamaha R1.
"The start of the journey between Jonathan and Yamaha has been positive in terms of him fitting into the team, the working atmosphere and how he's enjoyed the testing with the bike but unfortunately, the first two race events have been extremely disappointing," he told the WorldSBK website.
"They've been coupled with a combination of factors, some of which were obvious to see including crashes but also factors which were unseen and hindered his performance quite significantly.
"This combination means we haven't achieved anything like what we wanted to achieve in the first two events but the upsides are that he's physically fit, very motivated after a solid Barcelona test.
"We have two years as a minimum to achieve what we want to achieve but as an alpha male competitor with the success he's had, he won't be wanting to wait too much longer before we're fighting for the podium and achieving the results that he and the bike are capable of and we're hoping we'll be in a position for that to start at Assen.
"The motivation is the same as always and super high. The danger when you have challenges like we've had with Jonathan in the first rounds are to overreact and do the wrong things.
"The trick is to not start playing the blame game but to assess problems rationally and to stick to the process, making sure that we do the right things to recover the performance."
Accepting the 'challenge' of adapting to the Yamaha from Kawasaki has been more complicated than anticipated, Denning nonetheless feels Rea is nearing a platform from which he can begin 'over-extending' himself with confidence.
"It's a challenge when things aren't going in the right direction as you can find yourself wanting to do more and overcompensate for problems which then creates more problems than it solves.
"Clearly, there's an adaptation in a race situation required from him as well and particularly – unusually for any rider – as he's been on the same bike and in the same team for so long.
"The adaptation perhaps has been a bit more challenging than it might have been.
"I don't think it'll take too much more to grow that last bit of confidence and to start having the confidence to over-extend himself and to start trusting the bike and to have the additional bit of performance to start challenging for the podium."
Rea's best result from the opening two rounds of the season is a sole points' scoring result of eighth place achieved in Race 2 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, leaving him 17th overall.
The post Pata Yamaha boss talks Jonathan Rea's 'challenging' start to 2024 WorldSBK season appeared first on BikeSport News.
