Rea makes WSBK history. Again.

What seemed highly unlikely earlier this year became a reality in September when Kawasaki Racing Team’s Jonathan Rea won the 2019 Motul FIM Superbike World Championship.

Champion in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, Rea came to the start of this year’s World Superbike (WSBK) season as the red-hot favourite, but a blistering debut from series rookie, Aruba.it Ducati’s Alvaro Bautista, saw Rea spend more than half of the season as the hunter instead of the hunted.

Rea’s first race win didn’t come until the fourth round in April and he only took the championship lead for the first time in Round 8 in July, yet he won the title with two rounds in hand.

Stay Fast, Stay Upright

What worked for the Ulsterman throughout the season was his consistency. When Bautista was winning, Rea was usually runner-up. And when Bautista suffered a string of crashes and DNFs from Round 6 onwards, Rea kept his Kawasaki upright and, usually, finished on the podium, too.

A six-race winning streak from Race 2 at Misano to the Tissot Superpole Race at Laguna Seca contrasted with Bautista’s solitary third place finish across the same period.

By the time the WSBK paddock went on their summer break, Rea had turned a 42-point deficit three rounds earlier to an 81-point lead.

Coming to Round 11 at Magny Cours, Rea had his first chance to win the championship. Here’s how the round – and Rea’s history-making fifth WSBK championship - panned out.

French Flair…

Rea arrived at Magny Cours with a 91-point championship lead over Bautista; seemingly not enough to wrap up the title as 196 points were still up for grabs.

Finishing second in both Race 1 and the Tissot Superpole Race increased Rea’s margin to 104 points, and while that made the title mathematically possible, it wasn’t considered realistic that the championship would be decided in Race 2. Rea needed to win the race and have Bautista finish in twelfth or lower for that to happen.

However, in a 2019 WSBK season that has been unconventional in so many ways, that unlikely possibility became a reality when Bautista crashed on lap 2 and retired a lap later. Second behind Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha WSBK) at the time, Rea could have held that position and cruised to the title, but the champ-in-waiting nevertheless pushed to take the race lead and hold it to the finish to take his fifth championship with a race win.

"I can quite believe it. It has been an incredible year so far, and a year I have never given up, I've kept believing in myself, believing in my bike, believing in my crew and believing in my effort,” Rea said after his history-making win.

“I did not expect this. I had no idea what was going to happen, but I knew when I got the sign that Bautista was out that I could mathematically have the chance. And I did it!”

Rea added that seeing Bautista win – and win easily – in the early part of the season was hard to deal with, as neither he nor KRT seemed to have an answer to the Spaniard’s explosive speed on the new Ducati Panigale V4 R.

“It was so tough to keep turning up when you know that [Bautista] is going to be so difficult to [beat], but in the mid-season, we turned things around. Thanks to all my team, all my family and all the people who have been working with me, Kawasaki, the sponsors, all the people that made this possible. It's a huge team effort, and I couldn't be here without them"

… and Title Five

While last year’s fourth WSBK Championship saw Rea equal Carl Fogarty’s record, this year’s fifth title makes the Ulsterman statistically the most successful WSBK rider of all time.

As well as an unequalled championship tally, Rea also holds WSBK records for most race wins and career points.

Rea has done great things for Kawasaki, too. While the Japanese brand has been in WSBK for 32 years, Rea’s five years with KRT has seen him deliver almost half their total race wins.

Rea’s path to five successive WSBK championships started in 2008, when he rode his first – and only – season in World Supersport. Runner-up in the championship that year, the Ulsterman didn’t hang around to try and win that title, instead stepping up to World Superbike a year later with the established and successful Ten Kate Honda team.

Six years with Ten Kate delivered sporadic race wins and top five championship finishes, including 2014, when the then 27-year-old finished third in the championship behind Sylvain Guintoli (Aprilia) and Tom Sykes (Kawasaki).

A year later, Rea would be alongside Sykes in the factory Kawasaki Racing Team and on his way to a championship. Winning on debut with Kawasaki, Rea would score thirteen more race wins to comfortably take the 2015 WSBK championship from Chaz Davies (Ducati).

A resurgent Sykes made Rea earn the 2016 championship, but 2017 and 2018 came much easier, including the 2018 whitewash where Rea won the title by 189 points.

Of course, this year’s championship was much harder-earned, which has undoubtedly made it much more appreciated.

So, will Rea secure WSBK championship Number 6 in 2020? Given his performance this year, don’t rule it out!