Jonathan Rea has taken his fifth World Superbike championship, winning Race 2 at Magny-Cours to seal the deal on 2019.
Since Rea moved to the Kawasaki factory team for 2015, he’s been absolutely dominant, winning every championship since. Then-teammate Tom Sykes was his closest competition for a long time, but even Sykes wasn’t close enough to really make Rea sweat.
Then, earlier this year, ex-MotoGP racer Alvaro Bautista joined the Aruba.it squad and ran his Ducati to become Rea’s closest real competition since the move to Kawi, but Bautista’s slowed down as the 2019 season ran on, letting Rea get past him in the standings, and staying there.
Rea’s the first World Superbike racer to take five championships. And even though the rest of the field is mathematically eliminated from the title, the season still isn’t over, with races at Argentina and Qatar still on the schedule.
