As he did last year, Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea threatens to run away and hide from the competition by dominating the season from the start. Rea took another double win at Thailand this weekend, and after four rounds already has a 30 point lead in the championship.
In Race 1, Chaz Davies (Ducati) won the battle for second place over Tom Sykes (Kawasaki) who came home third just ahead of Marco Melandri (Ducati).
A red flag incident in Race 2 resulted in a restart and a 16 lap sprint that was again won by Rea. This time Sykes came home in the second spot, with Melandri third. Take a look at full race results for Race 1 and Race 2.
See more of MD’s great photography:
Also looks like the reverse grid in race two is going to have zero bearing on championship for the top 4 riders
re: “Also looks like the reverse grid in race two is going to have zero bearing on championship for the top 4 riders”
yup, sure did look good on paper, but unfortunately NATCORK is a beast.
What is surprising is how much faster the Kawasakis, Aprilias and BMW’s are compared to Honda, Aprilia and Yamaha as far as top speed goes. Lowes is a threat, as his top speed was down 6 mph, but he came in 4th in race 2.
How much of that would be the individual riders preferred gearing I wonder?
Has to be horsepower. I can’t believe there is enough traction or wheelie resistance to choose lower gearing for any sort of acceleration advantage, especially if there’s a straightaway long enough to give up 6 mph..
re: “Has to be horsepower.”
that’s a BINGO… (jocular Standartenfuhrer voice, as if there is such a thing)
Chaz Davies looks like he’s tired of the guys in green already. Going to be a long year if this continues.
Rea made his MotoGP debut in 2012, replacing the injured Casey Stoner for the Repsol Honda team. He finished 8th in the San Marino race, held at Misano in Italy, and 7th at Motorland Aragon in Spain, before returning to World Superbike duties.
On fast tracks the kawasakis still have an advantage. Hope on tighter tracks they can be beat or this is going to be boring all year.
He must be pretty damn good. Hasn’t he gotten any Moto GP offers or would he just rather stay put. Even if the Kawi is the best bike it can’t be by so much that it equals domination.
He’s too old to have a chance of getting a competitive ride in MotoGP
re: “Even if the Kawi is the best bike it can’t be by so much that it equals domination.”
oh sure it can, from what i saw at PI (and now Buri) it prolly holds a good 10-15hp advantage on the rest of the field. unbeknownst, Rea’s deliberately HIDING from you the kit’s full capability. he’s HIDING from you his machine advantage. good or bad, the strategy in racing has always been (when possible) to win at the “slowest possible speed”, that’s how the scam is run.
Q: OMG Norm, what does this mean…?
A: it means the dude’s riding around using only 3/4-7/8ths throttle while leaving the last 1/4-1/8th in reserve. he only dips into it when he needs it.
if anyone doubts (no worries) I simply encourage you to go back and rewatch these first 4 opening rounds, only this time study the performance of the unholy ZedRea/BrundleFly combo CLOSELY, it’s a “monster”.
oh look I snuck in a Ducati pun, see what i did there…?
I think I’ve seen this movie before.