Jonathan Rea earns right to be mentioned in same breath as Joey Dunlop

For Jonathan Rea to be mentioned in the same breath as legendary late motorcycle racer Joey Dunlop gives an indication that he has achieved something very special.

By becoming the first rider to win five World Superbike titles in a row, the Northern Irishman has emulated the feat of his revered compatriot, who secured five consecutive Formula One World Championships between 1982 and 1986.

The Formula One series, the forerunner of World Superbikes, was staged over road courses and short circuits, with Dunlop, voted Northern Ireland's best ever sportsman in a Belfast Telegraph poll in 2015, the dominant force.

The significance of equalling Joey's record of global championship successes will not be lost on Rea, a rider who has a strong sense of the history and tradition surrounding the heritage and achievements of his native country in motorcycle sport.

Aside from their country of birth, there are other parallels to be drawn between the multiple two-wheel champions, including the fact that both accumulated all their title triumphs with one manufacturer - Honda in the case of Dunlop and Rea with Kawasaki.

Joey Dunlop was voted Northern Ireland's best ever sports star in a 2015 poll

Their remarkable run of victories however came about in different eras, on different machinery, with different opposition.

While Rea has blazed a trail on short circuit tracks around the world, Dunlop's wins were predominantly, though not exclusively, achieved on pure road race courses such as the North West 200, Isle of Man TT and Ulster Grand Prix.

Rea says this title success is, in many ways, even more satisfying than the previous four given how unlikely another world crown looked to be earlier in the year.

Series organisers hoped that the introduction of an additional 10-lap Superpole sprint race, allied to the arrival of former MotoGP star Alvaro Bautista on the seemingly all-conquering new Ducati Panigale V4 R, would generate some extra excitement and competition to a championship which had become a bit of a 'Jonathan Rea benefit' in recent seasons.

In the event, Bautista exploded onto the scene, throwing down the gauntlet to Rea by clinching trebles in the Australia, Thailand and Aragon rounds to take control at the top of the standings.

Rea reels in Bautista's big championship lead

After the sprint race at the Jerez race in Spain, the Spaniard had built up a seemingly impregnable 61-point lead and looked set to wrench the title from the Ulsterman's grasp.

Given his record at Assen, many thought the fourth round at the Dutch circuit would herald Rea's comeback.

Bautista's outstanding sequence of wins continued, however, with a double helping to set a record for the most number of wins at the start of a season.

Significantly, Rea consistently picked up precious points by finishing runner-up to his rival in almost all those races, something Bautista failed to match when it became the Northern Irishman's turn to do the winning.

Though obviously frustrated by trying to compete against the clear straight line speed advantage of the new Ducati and with the odds seemingly stacked against him, Rea remained patient, with no sense of panic evident in his post-race interviews.

The 32-year-old went about transforming his fortunes, taking advantage of a run of strong tracks for him and his Kawasaki to bring about a monumental swing of 142 points in his favour.

Alvaro Bautista (right) seemed certain to end Rea's title-winning run earlier in the season

This meant that by the time the summer break came around in mid-July, he enjoyed an 81-point lead going into the final four rounds.

While Rea's ability, racecraft, course knowledge and longstanding partnership with his team and machine were crucial factors in this turnaround, he was also able to exploit Bautista's inexperience at circuits such as Imola, Portimao and Magny-Cours.

The Spanish rider was also the architect of his own downfall - his reversal of fortune epitomised by crashes at Jerez, Misano, Donington and twice at Laguna Seca, where he sustained the shoulder injury that is still blighting his efforts.

In addition to the obvious huge psychological blows and loss of confidence inflicted by these incidents, the Ducati evidently still had some way to go in becoming a strong bike through the turns, despite its superiority on the straights.

Rea ensured that he surpassed Carl Fogarty's previous benchmark of four WSB titles with the help of more wins in Portugal and France, racking up an unassailable lead with two rounds still remaining - an outcome that seemed extremely unlikely given the results of earlier in the year.

Even with the title secure, the Kawasaki pilot's tally of wins for 2019 stands at 12, compared to Bautista's 15.

Having already established himself as one of motorcycling and Northern Ireland sport's all-time greats, Rea can surely go on to continue smashing the record books and create more history in 2020.