Yamaha WorldSBK Team Reveals Latest on Jonathan Rea Injury

Yamaha will be without WorldSBK legend Jonathan Rea at this weekend’s season-opener at Phillip Island, after the six-time world champion suffered a big fall that led to multiple foot fractures.

Update: Rea will also miss the second round of the season in Portimao which was confirmed in Australia by Paul Denning.

Denning told WorldSBK.com: “He’s super disappointed but he’s back home. He’s seen a surgeon, and the next course of action will be… I don’t want to share anything that’s medically his private information, but he’s on it and doing everything he can to be ready as soon as he possibly can. 

"Jonathan, all things being equal as we know today, unfortunately has no chance of testing or racing at Portimao, in mid and end of March are the two dates which are just too early for the complexity of the injury to heal, so we’ll have two riders on track but who it will be is very much to be confirmed.”

Rea suffered the fall on the first of two days of testing at the Australian circuit earlier this week, and Yamaha has remained tight-lipped on whether a replacement will be named. 

Following a horrid first season with Yamaha, Rea’s hopes of making a much better start to his second campaign with the Japanese marque are off to the worst possible start. Without Rea, the factory Yamaha team will again be relying on the experience of Andrea Locatelli with Paul Denning, team principal of Pata Yamaha, admitting if the opener was in Europe then a replacement would have been named.

Rea’s crash during the test led to a trip to the medical centre before it was revealed he suffered multiple left foot fractures.

Rea was one of two big names to suffer a crash at Phillip Island as reigning world champion Toprak Razgatlioglu went down hard after a highside aboard his BMW M1000 RR. The Turkish star is in action this weekend.

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