Rea squashes rumours linking him to Petronas Yamaha MotoGP seat

Jonathan Rea has put rumours linking him to Petronas Yamaha in MotoGP to bed ahead of this weekend’s WorldSBK round five at Assen.  

In what was a short but to the point answer, Rea quickly dismissed them by saying he was just ‘as surprised’ as everyone else. 

"Of course, I don’t want to speak about that in the middle of a race weekend at all. But of course I read the same things as you and was equally as surprised," added Rea. 

The Northern Irishman heads into Assen second in the championship behind Toprak Razgatlioglu, who was also linked to that same Petronas seat before agreeing to a two-year extension with Pata Yamaha in WorldSBK. 

Rea was also asked about the wet weather that’s forecasted for Assen this weekend, and whether that would be to his advantage given main title rival Razgatlioglu’ struggles in such conditions.  

"Well you never know, you can never plan for the weather conditions; look at Donington, it was promising to rain all weekend but; okay we got an intermediate race, but aside from that it was pretty much dry. We can do just what we can do, focus on our strengths," said Rea. 

"I think we can be fast in the dry, in the wet, or whatever. Of course, Toprak is showing to be really strong together with his team. 

"They’re doing a really good job, managing the season well, so will keep working on myself. It’s a long season like you said and we’ve done four races; feels like halfway, but there’s so, so much racing left to do. 

"We’re not even a third of the way through the championship yet, so a lot of racing to do."