Razgatlioglu narrowly beat Rea to the 2021 title by just 13 points, while the 2022 season saw Rea start strongly before fading back to third place, 99 points away from eventual winner Alvaro Bautista. The 2023 season has been one of Rea’s least lucrative in a decade, helped in no small part by the Kawasaki struggling to keep up with both the Yamaha and the Ducati – the latter being a rocket ship – in a straight line. His only win of the year so far came at the most recent round at Most in the Czech Republic at the end of July, just before the six-week summer break.
While he still sits third in the standings, Rea is some 176 points behind Bautista, who has dominated the year, winning 18 out of 24 races. Razgatlioglu holds second, but has a 74-point deficit to Bautista’s Ducati.
The World Superbike Championship gets back underway this weekend with the French round, held at Magny-Cours, where Razgatlioglu will hope for a repeat of his double win in 2022 as he tries to close the gap to Bautista with 248 points still up for grabs across 12 races in the final four rounds.