Jonathan Rea\u2019s side of the Pata Yamaha garage are \u201cfortunate\u201d to have Xavi Vierge joining them in 2026.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s according to the six-time World Superbike<\/a> Champion himself, who will depart the series after 17 seasons after the season-ending Spanish Round at Jerez later this week (17\u201319 October).<\/p>\n Rea has spent two years at the Pata Yamaha team, and says he \u201cloves my guys there\u201d, although Vierge<\/a> will not work with the exact crew that Rea has now.<\/p>\n \u201cSuper-excited because Xavi [Vierge] is a great guy, a great personality,\u201d Jonathan Rea<\/a> said of Vierge, speaking to WorldSBK.com on Thursday (9 October) at the Estoril Round.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen him many times in the off-season, in preseason, training on motocross and whatnot.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cI really love my guys there and they\u2019re very fortunate to have Xavi in the box; he\u2019s an ultimate professional, I know he\u2019ll give 100 per cent, and I hope also that his riding style will match with the Yamaha R1.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think it will, just from following him this season, and I wish him and also the team all the best into 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n Vierge will be able to get his first taste of the Yamaha R1 in the post-race test at Jerez following the final round of the 2025 season on 17\u201319 October.<\/p>\n The Spanish rider is expected to work with Tom O\u2019Kane, who currently works with Andrea Locatelli<\/a> on the other side of the factory Yamaha box, as crew chief, instead of Oriol Pallares who Rea brought in as crew chief to replace Andrew Pitt after the conclusion of the 2024 season. Locatelli, instead, is expected to work with Giulio Nava<\/a>, Alvaro Bautista’s current crew chief at Ducati.<\/p>\n Rea\u2019s future remains undecided. There are links with the Endurance World Championship and the Northern Irishman has made clear his desire to race local motocross races.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonathan Rea\u2019s side of the Pata Yamaha garage are \u201cfortunate\u201d to have Xavi Vierge joining them in 2026.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,9400,52088,806,805,803,804,27363,85,130575],"class_list":{"0":"post-212524","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-honda-hrc","11":"tag-jonathan-rea","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-pata-maxus-yamaha","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-xavi-vierge"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}