Jonathan Rea seals record 200th World Superbike rostrum in Czech Republic

Jonathan Rea celebrates his 200th World Superbike podium at Most in the Czech Republic on Sunday.

The Kawasaki rider crashed out of third place in race one and came off again after re-joining the action following an uncharacteristic brace of mistakes.

Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha) won the race after a close battle with Ducati’s Scott Redding (Aruba.it Ducati) to close the deficit to 12 points, and the Turkish rider slashed Rea’s title advantage even further with a start to finish win in Sunday’s Superpole race.

Briton Redding, last year’s championship runner-up, had no answer to the Yamaha man, while Rea brought his ZX-10RR home for some solid points in third, securing a milestone 200th rostrum result at Most, which is a new venue on the calendar this year.

His incredible double century of podiums includes 107 wins, 63 runner-up finishes and 30 third positions.

“I struggled a bit, riding on my limit just to be there on a new circuit,” Rea said.

“I feel like we found our limits quite early with the bike.

“When I get into that slipstream I just can’t get forward. There is work to do for us and we will try to make that step for Race Two.”

The Northern Ireland rider had been pressuring Razgatlioglu for the lead but Rea made a mistake on the brakes at Turn 1 with three laps to go, which ended his hopes. The 34-year-old fell into the clutches of Redding, who overtook Rea on the final lap to snatch second place.

Razgatlioglu clinched his 10th WSBK win by half-a-second and is now seven points behind Rea going into the final race of the weekend on Sunday (14:15 BST).

Italy’s Andrea Locatelli finished fourth on the second of the Pata Yamaha machines, four seconds behind Rea, with Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad) and American Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yamaha) the top six.