‘I never doubted myself, but I doubted I’d get the opportunity,” Jonathan Rea says at the end of a wild day in and around Bushmills, a village 60 miles from Belfast. After becoming the Superbike world champion for an unprecedented third year in a row, and now on the shortlist for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award on Sunday, Rea has had to weather a burst of fame and a battering storm on the north coast.
The driven yet unassuming 30‑year‑old has been filmed by the BBC at Giant’s Causeway, a beautiful area on a normal day but a wilderness on a morning where he is more exposed than when racing at 200mph. Rea still looks unflappable as he waits for a cup of tea next to a roaring open fire at the local hotel.
This season Rea won 16 out of 26 races. He is now only one world championship short of Carl Fogarty, who won four Superbike titles in the 1990s, but Rea is compelling when remembering the long and testing road that led to his current position. “There were moments when it all seemed pretty unlikely,” he admits as he grabs his tea and we head back towards Belfast. An hour-long car journey is one way to get to the heart of those moments when Rea’s resolve was examined with brutal impact. “The toughest time was in 2004 when my dream just started,” he says, returning to the frightening accident he had aged 17. “It was almost a career-ender.”
He looks out of the window as the green fields of County Antrim rush past in a sodden blur. “I was riding 125cc bikes and I am the same weight now as I was back then at 17. I was too big for the 125 class and I got an opportunity on a Honda Supersport bike. I found my feet but after six races I broke my femur. I broke it so badly the doctors told me I would never race again.
“I went into Turn One on a Scottish track and my brakes completely failed while I was racing at 160mph. I didn’t get knocked out but I wish I could have been because I was in a world of pain. The doctor at the track said I’d broken my femur. I was thinking: ‘How does he know?’ He later told me he could see the femur was actually outside my leathers.
“It took four operations to fix my leg – because of the high energy it took to break the bone it wasn’t growing back. The last option was to take bone from my hip and that worked. But before then doctors were telling me I would never race again. That sounds like it’s a sensationalised story but these doctors work with everyday patients. They didn’t understand I don’t have a normal brain. I was going to overcome this injury and, each time they told me I couldn’t, I had new motivation.”
Surely Rea feared he would never race again? “Of course I got really down. But my family encouraged me and my strength-and-conditioning coach Darren Roberts pretty much rebuilt me. I was back on the bike in eight months.”
Has he had many crashes since then? “I broke the same femur in 2013 at Nürburgring. I crashed in oil. Fortunately I had the metal work out of my leg by then and I got operated on that night in Germany by a great surgeon. Two days later he told me to get out of bed. I was thinking, ‘Are you joking?’ But he got me out of bed and told me to walk to him. I was walking with two screws in my knee and one in my hip, with a metal pin, so it didn’t matter the bone was broken. He wanted to prove to me that for this bone to heal I needed to be aggressive. Ten days later I was on my bicycle.”
Rea had six full seasons in World Superbikes with Honda but it was only when he joined Kawasaki, in 2015, that his talent bloomed. “I had great support at Honda but the bike wasn’t a class leader. When the stars aligned I could win races. I actually had 14 race wins with Honda but I was never a championship contender. So when I finally found Kawasaki I was ready to win because of my experience and jumping on to a proven winner.”
This year has marked the sweetest of his three title wins. “This is the most fun I’ve had and the most dominant I’ve been,” he stresses. Rea sinks back into his seat and grins blissfully. His achievement has assumed a more populist edge after the announcement of the Spoty shortlist. “I’m happy and proud for Northern Ireland and for motorcycling because it’s 10 years since James Toseland [Superbike world champion in 2004 and 2007] got nominated. Superbikes in the UK is not really popular. It’s not a mainstream sport. But Superbikes in Italy is on terrestrial TV. La Gazzetta Dello Sport has pages of coverage. So landing in Bologna airport is quite something. It’s not like the paparazzi mobbing Lewis Hamilton, but you’re recognised and asked for autographs.”
It sounds as if he is more famous in Bologna than Belfast? “Pretty much – but Belfast is different. This country is incredible. Sport brings the whole place together whether it’s Rory McIlroy, Carl Frampton, the football team, Ulster rugby and now me with motorcycling. It gives the community something to support instead of focusing on religion or other problems.”
When I suggest that Rea is too young to have experienced the worst of the Troubles he says: “Yes and no. I grew up in the country so I was sheltered – but I got really bullied at school because I didn’t understand why the kerbs were painted red, white and blue. I thought it was a race track. People said: “No, it’s because this is a Protestant area.”
We both laugh before Rea becomes more serious. “I’ve got good faith but I don’t distinguish between Protestants and Catholics. I don’t follow religious‑based football teams. I support the national team. Sport brings people together. So it seems funny now I got bullied even if it was horrible at the time. I never took part in school sport or played rugby on a Saturday because I went to motocross. I remember being threatened loads that I’d get beaten up. The worst was that I would get stabbed on my way to the bus. Then, a few years ago, the baddest kid said hello to me in my local fuel station. He was stacking shelves there and I was racing in the world championship. We went to a top grammar school and I thought: ‘You’ve ended up here?’ I guess he’s not the same douchebag he was back then.”
Rea was determined to make it as a motocross rider. His dad, who had won TT races on the Isle of Man, supported him but, eventually, the excessive costs and travel became too much. Rea was upset but aged 14 he entered an X-Factor style competition run by Red Bull, who were looking for two young road-racers to become rookies in British Superbikes. He and his friend Eugene Laverty, who rides alongside him in World Superbikes now, won the places. It did not matter to them that Rea was a Protestant and Laverty a Catholic. “Me and Eugene were Dumb and Dumber,” Rea jokes. “We had a great time going to house parties.”
For years Rea won races on raw talent alone and he admits he became far more dedicated once he started a serious relationship with his Australian wife Tatia. “I met her in 2007 but we didn’t get together until 2009. We went through the flirty stage and then the no-strings-attached phase. But Tatia’s seven years older and she never wanted to end up with a rider as she had worked with a PR agency doing motor sport events. It took a long time for us to think we should give it a good go. But in the week that we decided to become serious I won my first race in 2009.”
His success has rocketed following the birth of their sons, four-year-old Jake and two-year-old Tyler. “Balance is a cliched word but that’s what it’s about,” Rea suggests. “It used to be that my day was eat, sleep and race. In the mornings I would stand on the scales and adjust my diet. My brain was unstable. But even before kids came along I relaxed and started liking myself as opposed to punishing yourself. You’d have a bad result and train even harder. You get beat the next week and it’s a vicious circle. But once I started to accept and like myself, and kids came along, I didn’t get hung up about silly things. I became a lot mentally stronger.”
Rumours of a possible move to MotoGP have intensified – but Rea is contracted to Kawasaki until the end of 2018. “It would be the fairytale ending to go to MotoGP with Kawasaki but it’s very unlikely. There were rumours last year about Suzuki because one of their riders [Andrea Iannone] was struggling and it seemed I would be the logical replacement. I enjoyed reading some of it.”
There is substance to the speculation because Rea did well when he replaced the injured Casey Stoner for Honda in two MotoGP races in 2012. “I finished seventh and eighth and really enjoyed it. It’s the pinnacle of motorbike racing and it almost went unnoticed – especially as I was racing my Superbike at the same time on completely different tyres.”
Rea caused more of a stir when testing at Jerez in 2016 and 2017 – and riding faster on a Superbike than the lighter and more powerful MotoGP machines. “I was ahead of all of them both times and that was super nice. Part of me really wants to stay with Kawasaki after next year because I get treated really well. But I’m also thinking that I’ve ridden with the MotoGP guys at Jerez. They have a bike that has 50 horsepower more and weighs 15 kilos less – and I’m going at the same speed. So something inside me wants to challenge myself in the same circumstances.”
Rea is motivated to win his fourth successive championship under challenging new regulations designed to curb his dominance – and he makes it clear he would only consider switching if a leading MotoGP team approached him to race in 2019. “One hundred per cent. I would be genuinely excited because I’d see it as my chance. Andrea Dovizioso is 31 and had the most incredible year [finishing second behind Marc Márquez]. Valentino Rossi is 38 and still at the front. So the MotoGP mentality is changing. It used to be we need kids, whereas now experience counts. So maybe it is my time.”
As we reach Belfast airport the sky is dark and it’s cold. Yet, for Rea, a golden year is ending on a sustained high. He smiles again in a way which mixes rueful honesty with steely determination. “It’s kind of scary that the only way is down but I want to stay where I am, at the top, a whole lot longer.”