Points in the bag for Rea but more improvements to come

BY GILES SPENCER
giles@slpmedia.co.uk

Tooting born, Gino Rea brought home three point scoring rides in the first round of the 2021 British Superbike Championship at Oulton Park in Cheshire last weekend.

Rea qualified his Buildbase Suzuki GSX-R1000 in tenth place, just behind 2020 champion, Josh Brookes on the VisionTrack Ducati.

For the first of three races over the weekend, Rea made a solid start off the front of the fourth row to keep his position at the end of the first of 14 laps, moving up to eighth on lap five as he dives under his team mate, Danny Kent.

Five laps to go the 31 year old began to struggle as the Kawasaki of Lee Jackson, similarly mounted Ryan Vickers and Brookes demoted the South Londoner to eleventh at the chequered flag.

Starting 14th on the grid for the first race on Sunday, Rea gets a better start to move up to 12th by the end of lap one of eighteen, eventually finishing 13th, getting the better of Kent by 0.070 seconds after a race long battle.

Final race of the weekend and Rea leaps off the line to gain five places to tenth over the first lap before settling into a scrap with BMW mounted Kyle Ryde, being joined by with four laps to go by Honda’s Glenn Irwin.

Across the line to take the flag and Rea takes another eleventh, just behind Irwin with only 0.631 seconds covering the three racers.

Top Suzuki rider, Rea sits 12th in the championship on 13 points.

“It’s been a difficult weekend.” said Rea, “We didn’t quite get the bike right for the race distance Saturday and Sunday morning.

“My bike wasn’t so bad for one lap. Sunday morning we were second in warm up, we just couldn’t do that long race distance.

“We did a chassis change between the two races on Sunday and it really helped us, not only with tyre wear but the physicality of the bike and that makes a massive difference around a track like Oulton that is so difficult.

“In the third race I spent too long getting past Kyle Ryde and the group ahead pulled away and Glenn Irwin pipped me at the end, so i just missed out on a top ten but we left the track feeling really positive because of the step we made for the last race. I had the pace the the top six, top eight.

“Three point scoring rides at what we think is going to be our worst track of the season so onwards and upwards from here.”

RICH Energy OMG Racing BMW’s Bradley Ray, mentored by Lambeth born Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne’s 67 Sports Management company, finished fifth in race two and failed to finish in the other two.

McCAMS Yamaha rider Jason O’Halloran made a clean sweep, winning all three races over the weekend to take home the championship lead.

The next round of the championship is at Knockhill in Scotland over the 10-11th July.

Pictures: Impact Images/Bonnie Lane