Six-time WorldSBK champion Jonathan Rea had to settle for༒ second best on day-one at Mandalika as title favourite Toprak Razgatlioglu dominated pro🔥ceedings.

Rea, who faces an upward task to retain his world title - currently 30 points down on Razgatlioglu🍨 ahead of tomorrow’s first of three races this weekend, rebounded in FP2 to take second after finishing 11th in FP1൩.

The cause for Rea’s slow start was a te🌌chnical issue which cost the Kawasaki rider more th🌄an half the session.

“When I came to the box we had a technical issue and unfortunately we couldn’t solve it unti🎉l the end,” added Rea. "I was lucky that we got one out lap at the very end to check if we fixed the problem so that we didn’t wast💝e FP2 trying to find what was wrong. 

"It was unfortuna𝄹te because I spent more than half the session in the box which had a knock-on effect to learn the track. 

"But in FP2 I think I did a good salvage job to fi🍨nd a good rhythm, good pace, and the bike is okay. 

"I still need to impro✨ve in some areas. I think there’s a bit of margin to improve🎀 so I’m quite optimistic to fight tomorrow."

Despite being within two tenths of Razgatlioglu come the end of today’s action, Rea is still playing catch-up to the Yamaha rider who was in sensationa🌠l form. Razgatlioglu topped both practices including FP1 by over 1.5 seconds. 

Rea was losing most of his time to Razgatlioglu in sector one which ne🍌eds stability on the brakes, something he hopes a ‘balance change with ﷽the chassis’ can help with.

Rea said "We need to improve stability on the brakes because I’𝔉m losing too much in the final part of bra🦄king. 

"The front is in crisis and is losing a little bit of traction. I think some balance changes with the chassis and we should 𓄧෴be there. 

"It’s something we do quite often so I'm quite optimistic to try it in FP3 and♔ ♉then see how we are for the Superpole. 

"The Superpole is going to be very important because ꧒t🍌rack position here is key."