It's that July time of year again for Northern Ireland's Jonathan Rea as the Hannspree Ten Kate Honda man dovetails his regular Superbike World Championship day job with extra-curricular activities for HRC in Japan, who have drafted him in for this year's prestigious Suzuka 8 Hours race on July 25th, one week before Silverstone.
Unlike previous years Rea will be the only WSB representative at the 2010 event, when he lines up at Suzuka for the TSR Honda team, alongside Japanese riders Kousuke Akiyoshi and Yuki Takahashi.
"I will be riding for the HRC supported TSR Honda, so I am looking forward to swinging my leg over the bike tomorrow (Ed. today) at a private test. I think that the engine specification should be quite close to the Ten Kate Honda so hopefully there is not too many differences to learn. One main factor though is that the team use Bridgestone tyres and I will have to get used to them."
Rea also found the time to reflect on the reasons behind a changed performance over the weekend when after the last two disappointing rounds, he pulled it all together to monopolize the first and second place slots in the two races together with Aprilia's Max Biaggi.
"That was a bit more like it last weekend eh? I was so happy to get back onto the box again and especially with a win. When things are bad it is hard to explain what goes through your head. And after a few bad races and having a bad feeling with the bike we were able to rise up and win again. As I have said before the communication within my team has changed a little to help some small issues that we have been having within the garage. I will take some of the blame for that as I requested that I have one guy to deal with but that took too much time. Within my team there are key technicians each with their own area of expertise and we are trying to bring that all together and having three guys dealing with me when I get off the bike each time as well as my tyre guy from Pirelli."
"I also think that that the few bad races have made me grow up a little and I guess when things go bad they go bad. In the end I had a 1-2 and only got beat by Biaggi in race 2. He had a bit more in the tank and was 4 seconds faster over the race. I gave too much away on laps 5 to 11 and then he controlled the gap. But fair play, during the race I kept thinking that he is trying to teach me a lesson."
Source: http://www.worldsbk.com/
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