Jonathan Rea leaves Kawasaki, signs with Yamaha
Jonathan Rea, who raced with Kawasaki for nine years in the Superbike World Championship, has signed with Yamaha for the 2024 season.
Despite Rea's contract with Kawasaki for another year, he started to look forward to the team change due to the bike's decline and not getting the results he expected. Rea's team change decision became final when our representative Toprak Razgatlıoğlu left Yamaha and agreed with BMW.
As a result, Kawasaki and Rea agreed to end the contract one season early. Thus, Rea left the team where he had great success for nine years.
Rea's teammate, who will replace Toprak in Yamaha next season, is Andrea Locatelli.
“We are delighted to welcome Jonathan to the Yamaha family and we are very keen to collaborate with him in the future,” said Eric de Seynes, CEO of Yamaha Europe.
“We have the same motivation and the same passion for winning. Like him, we became world champions in the past years and we want to rise to the top once again.”
Speaking about Rea, Seynes said, “Jonathan's tenacity, determination and hunger for success have been constant throughout his career and these traits will contribute to our shared success in the future.”
“We strongly believe that by increasing the number of world titles Jonathan can put his name in the history books even bigger, and we are equally confident that he can do it with us,” said Seynes. "We've been working hard over the years to provide exactly what he and Yamaha need to achieve their goals."
Rea, who has only won once in eight race weekends this year, is currently in third place in the championship.
