100 wins in green

Despite the passage of time and the ever-improving competition, Jonathan Rea continues to create his legend and that of the Elf Kawasaki team. In Assen, the Brit won the first two races of the weekend. He now has seventeen wins at the Dutch circuit, twelve of which he has achieved aboard his Kawasaki ZX-10RR. A performance that makes him the first rider to score one hundred victories with the same brand. Fighting with Alvaro Bautista and Toprak Razgatlioglu in the first two races, Rea used his experience to preserve his tyres and his bike until the last meters and take the win. Unfortunately, just as he was hoping to pull off a hat-trick, at one of his favourite tracks, the Elf Kawasaki rider tangled in the final race with Razgatlioglu after the latter went off the track. Both men fell, handing victory to championship leader Alvaro Bautista.

Commented Rea, “Toprak braked 15 metres later than usual. He stopped his bike on the rumble strip and then came back on track, onto my line. I was in front of him but he hit me on the hip and we both went down. I was happy with our technical package and happy to have been able to give Kawasaki a hundredth win, but can’t help wishing the weekend had ended better." Alex Lowes was even more unlucky. In the first race on Saturday afternoon the Briton was running in fifth position when a stone kicked up by an opponent's bike holed his Kawasaki’s radiator, forcing him to retire. In the Sprint race it was a technical problem that forced him back to the pits. Fortunately, the weekend ended better, with Lowes finishing the final race in a strong fourth place.