The rumors that Jonathan Rea could ride for Yamaha starting with the 2024 Superbike World Championship (WSBK) season started at the end of July. Now the six-time world champion has decided to take exactly this step with regard to his sporting future.
According to information from our Spanish colleagues at Motorsport.com, Rea’s move from Kawasaki to Yamaha has been finalized and is set to be officially announced ahead of the upcoming WSBK race weekend (September 8-10 at Magny-Cours).
Rea will be the successor to Toprak Razgatlioglu at Yamaha. The Turk, who won the 2021 world championship title on the R1, is switching to BMW for the 2024 season. In Rea’s WSBK career, Yamaha becomes the third employer after Honda and Kawasaki. This weekend, Rea is staying at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya to follow the MotoGP weekend as a guest.
Rea has been active in the Superbike World Championship since autumn 2008, for Kawasaki since 2015. Between 2015 and 2020 he was world champion six times in a row. Since then, however, it has gradually gone downhill. In 2021 Rea became vice world champion behind Yamaha pilot Razgatlioglu. In 2022, the Kawasaki pilot “only” managed third place in the World Championship behind Alvaro Bautista (Ducati) and Razgatlioglu.
In the current WSBK season 2023, Rea is currently also third in the world championship behind Bautista and Razgatlioglu. At the past race weekend in Most he clinched his first win of the season. He has been dissatisfied with Kawasaki’s strategy for a long time. The result is that the contract, which was actually valid until the end of 2024, will be terminated by mutual agreement at the end of 2023.
Significant: At the WSBK test a few days ago at MotorLand Aragon, Rea no longer tested any technical developments for 2024. On the first of the two days of testing (Tuesday), Kawasaki’s Supersport rider Adrian Huertas and test rider Florian Marino sat on the factory team’s two Ninja ZX-10RR. Regular drivers Rea and Alex Lowes only drove on the second day of testing (Wednesday).
Unlike Rea, Lowes will remain with Kawasaki for the 2024 WSBK season as well. His contract was extended by a year at the end of June. It is still unclear who Lowes’ new teammate will be. One of the candidates is Scott Redding. For his part, the current BMW driver has been linked with a move to Yamaha. But now that an agreement has been reached with Rea, there is no longer any room for Redding. Andrea Locatelli is under contract with Yamaha until the end of 2025.