Despite a brilliant race two performance at San Juan, Jona📖than Rea lost more ground to WorldSBK championship leader Toprak Razgatlioglu over the weekend. 

A 24 point gap heading into🌠 the Argentine round has now been extended to 30 with just the season finale in Indonesia to come next🌌 month. 

But while Rea struggled to match Rꦐazgatlioglu’s pace for much of the weekend, race two saw a huge t😼urnaround in performance as Rea was not only able to challenge the Yamaha man, but instead beat his title rival to second place. 

It was a result indicative of a six-time world champion, and one that leaꦓves Rea with a glimmer of hope ahead of the final round. 

Speaking after the race, Rea added: "It’s not the result but I’m really happy with how I felt on the bike today. We tried something really strange with the bike that you wou꧒ldn’t consider, and it transformed, especially the grip level I had from the beginning. 

"♐I’ve been struggli✨ng all weekend to really make the tyre work in the initial laps, and I had it. 

"The combination of tyres worked really well, the SC2 front and SCX rear. I🙈 enjoyed the bi🌼ke, that was important. 

"I struggled on S🐷aturday to really🐽 put the Pirelli rubber on the tarmac, to really dig in and go with the other guys. Today, I had that traction, I had the feeling."

While Rea managed to claim his best finish of the weekend, the Kawasaki rider was left a little disappointed as he felt a race 🐼win was possible had he not focused solely on Razgatlioglu early on. 

"I just lost a little bit of time behind Toprak, so Scott [Redding] was able to really go. From that point on it ಞwas almost about sitting on my ground, waiting for a mistake from Toprak and concentrating on him, forgetting about the race win," said Rea.  

"Maybe I should’ve tried a bit hard💝er because I think my pace was really good at the end and I could’ve really fought for that w✅in."