The recent news that six-time World Superbike champion Jonathan Rea will retire at the end of 2025 brings to a close one of the most storied careers in the history of the production bike class.
A contender for the ‘GOAT’ title in WSB (with maybe only Carl Fogarty also in contention), Rea steps away from the series as its uncontested modern master thanks to his six consecutive title wins from 2015 to 2020.
There’s only one big ‘what if’ in the Northern Irishman’s career, one that will be debated for years to come; what he could have accomplished had he made the switch across to MotoGP instead of remaining in WSB.
Offered multiple opportunities over the years with satellite teams like Pramac and Forward, it never quite materialised for Rea. Partly out of loyalty in the early part of his career to Honda (the only manufacturer to actually give him a MotoGP chance) and partly out of the difficulty in stepping away from multiple world titles, it means that we saw him competing on a prototype machine only twice in his whole career.
That chance came in 2012, before his incredible World Superbike success even materialised but when he had already highlighted himself as a super talent by the way he was able to take a difficult Honda Fireblade to the top step of the podium on a regular basis. That success meant he was first in line when Honda needed an injury replacement for none other than reigning world champion Casey Stoner in its works team.
Stoner had crashed out earlier in the season at the German Grand Prix, damaging his ankle, and had hobbled through the next few rounds before finally conceding that he needed surgery ahead of the San Marino race, stepping aside and allowing Rea to take over at both Misano and Aragon.
Testing first at Brno to get up to speed with the RC213V, Rea absolutely did not disappoint himself on his two appearances with a pair of top eight results that very much highlighted to the world what could be possible for him should he have been given a full-time opportunity.
There’s another metric by which we can predict Rea’s potential in MotoGP, too, though; the rise of his long-time career sparring partner Cal Crutchlow.
Products of the same Honda system in the British championship and rising together to World Superbikes, it’s not unfair to suggest that Rea normally had the match of his rival - and quite feasible to think his own MotoGP career would’ve been had a similar outcome to Crutchlow’s multiple race wins and factory seat.
There’s one fundamental difference in their careers, though: Crutchlow abandoned the chance of further WSB success just as he arrived on a factory bike in order to live his MotoGP dream, and made it work.
Rea remained where he was, moving from Honda to Kawasaki and embarking on an incredible winning streak - but it came at the price of arguably one of the biggest 'what ifs' in recent racing history.
