During FP3 of the WorldSBK Superbike in Assen, Nicholas Bulega was the fastest in the wet. Six-time world champion Jonathan Rea is in dire straits.
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Jonathan Rhea has 17 Superbike victories at Assen and has been on the podium 25 times out of 31 races contested. In no other circuit in the world has the Northern Irish champion won so much. It makes sense that this weekend, everything will be focused on him, even more than usual. The Yamaha challenge did not start well, to put it mildly. He returned from Australia with zero points and at the next round in Catalonia things didn't go as well as the driver and team had hoped. Yamaha hoped Rea would not make the “traitor” regret Toprak Razgatlioglu, dazzled by the BMW millions. But the opposite happens: the Turk still wins, while the new marriage is for the moment a failure. During the 20 minutes of the third and final session, he finished 14th, 4,289 seconds behind the leader Nicolò Bulega.
The team wonders
« Every time I get on the Yamaha YZF-R1, I feel like I'm starting over." said Jonathan Rhea at the end of the two free practice sessions on Friday in the Netherlands. These are not very reassuring words, considering the amount of work that the driver and the team have already accomplished together, between winter testing and the start of the championship. From the outside, the growing idea is that the marriage hasn't started well at all. Jonathan really likes to ride in front, with the Kawasaki he did well, but not with the Yamaha. So far, he's tried tweaking the settings to solve the mystery, following the same path he did in the Ninja days. But in the Yamaha box, we are more and more skeptical about this strategy. “Rea has to understand that Yamaha is not Kawasaki, he has to adapt, because it doesn’t work like that“, we whisper in the box. It is still early, there is still time, but it is clear that the pilot and the technicians do not understand each other very well. Assen will be a very important test by fire: Jonathan Rea must clearly show that he is right. Otherwise there will be problems.
Terrible weather conditions
The last session of the program took place in borderline weather conditions: 6°C in the air (perceived at only 2°C!) and wet asphalt. In these conditions, it is very easy to make mistakes. So, Andrea Locatelli
fell immediately, later imitated by Iker Lecuona. The Bergamo returned to the track shortly after, the Spaniard is at the medical center. Nicolo
Open up confirmed that he was also very comfortable on the slippery track. Remember that the world championship leader is returning from an operation on his right arm for compartment syndrome. The day is full of unknowns: at 11:10 the Superpole.
Result of FP3 Superbike in Assen:
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Paul Gozzi
Classification credit: WorldSBK.com
