Jonathan Rea took a fourth place finish in today’s opening second-round World Superbike championship race at Motorland Aragon in Spain but his Pata Honda team had little else to show for its hard work over the weekend and in two tests leading up to the races.

Today’s two outings at the 5.344km circuit – run under clear blue skies and with temperatures in the mid-twenties – were both won by Chaz Davies as Rea battled for a possible podium in the first 20-lapper.

His result underlined the steps forward made by his team since testing at Motorland Aragon two weeks ago, but the 26-year-old Northern Irishman was unable to match that performance in race two. A broken brake-adjuster forced him to pit, although he rejoined the race to take a solitary point in 15th place.

His Pata Honda team-mate, Leon Haslam, took two ninth-place finishes, with brake issues of his own affecting both his races this afternoon. The 29-year-old made some adjustments after race one, but was unable to fight for a better result.

The team will now re-group and target a strong come-back at its home race at Assen in The Netherlands in two weeks’ time.

Jonathan Rea – 4th and 15th

It’s hard to know what to say, really, because it was clear that we were on a bit of a high coming to the races here after the test two weeks ago. Immediately on Friday morning the bike felt a lot better and we worked really hard with the guys all weekend and put in a long run to understand the electronics setting. I feel that we got it in a satisfactory area where I was happy to push, but I’m disappointed with the overall performance. In the races I was unable to compete with the guys around me on the straight, which made riding the rest of the circuit very intense. In race one we had a game plan that worked out better than we expected because a few riders had some misfortune. We plugged away and were there to pick up the pieces and finished fourth. For me it felt like a podium because we’ve come from a long way back and we kind of had the feeling that we were climbing a ladder. Then in race two it was like someone kicked me back off it because I had a problem with the brake adjuster. The brake kept winding itself in and for one lap I tried to ride with it but the lever was coming back to the bar. I was going to be a risk to other riders so I came in to fix that. Again, my pace was strong when I rejoined which is a real shame because I felt like we deserved some more points in race two. We go to Assen with no more testing which gives the guys some downtime. I think we all need it because we’ve had a lot of testing recently, but we’ll hopefully learn from these issues and start again in Assen.


Leon Haslam – 9th and 9th

It was a tough start to the weekend with the issues we had on Friday and then Saturday even more so with the crash in qualifying and then the technical problem with a broken sensor in FP2. We finally got the bike running in Superpole, which I was really happy about and we found a really good amount of time. Today we’ve just had brake issues. Race one was worse than race two but the problems have kind of determined our results and they are long old races when you have those kind of problems.

Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator

We were quite happy with Jonathan’s fourth in race one. It was a pretty good result considering the problems we had in testing here, trying to find a setting for the electronics. Fourth was more than we could have hoped for, really, so well done to him for that. Unfortunately in race two he had a problem and had to pull in to get it fixed. He got fifteenth in the end but that was not what he deserved. You could see from the lap times that he could have aimed for another fourth or fifth, maybe sixth, but we apologise to him for that. I think he will be strong again in Assen and we hope he can fight for the podium. Leon got two ninths which was a bit disappointing but the reasons were obvious. He had some braking issues and that’s a pity because we found a good overall setting for the bike yesterday. If he hadn’t experienced those problems, I’m sure he would have been fighting for similar positions to Jonathan. We’ll keep working, stay positive and head for our home track at Assen.

Pole position : 1m56.339s (165.370Km/h) Tom Sykes, Kawasaki, 2013
Fastest lap : Race 1 - Lap 3 - 1m57.973s (163.070Km/h) Tom Sykes, Kawasaki
Circuit record lap : 1m57.973s (163.070Km/h) Tom Sykes, Kawasaki, 2013
Circuit Best Lap : 1m56.339s (165.370Km/h) Tom Sykes, Kawasaki, 2013


Event results - Round 2 - Race 1

1 Chaz Davies 39m50.332s GBR BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
2 Sylvain Guintoli 5.216 FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
3 Marco Melandri 7.089 ITA BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
4 Jonathan Rea 8.196 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
5 Loris Baz 14.417 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
6 Jules Cluzel 18.332 FRA SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
7 Carlos Checa 24.306 SPA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
8 Michel Fabrizio 25.884 ITA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
9 Leon Haslam 35.721 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
10 Ayrton Badovini 44.129 ITA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
11 Max Neukirchner 51.424 GER DUCATI MR-Racing
12 Federico Sandi 1'09.217 ITA KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
13 Ivan Clementi 1'14.091 ITA BMW HTM Racing
14 Vittorio Iannuzzo 1'48.328 ITA BMW Grillini DENTALMATIC SBK Team
15 Eugene Laverty 6 laps IRL APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
16 Davide Giugliano DNF ITA APRILIA Althea Racing
17 Alexander Lundh DNF SWE KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
18 Mark Aitchinson DNF AUS DUCATI Team Effenbert Liberty Racing
19 Tom Sykes DNF GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team

Event results - Round 2 - Race 2

1 Chaz Davies 37m52.691s GBR BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
2 Sylvain Guintoli 5.035 FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
3 Tom Sykes 7.677 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
4 Davide Giugliano 12.549 ITA APRILIA Althea Racing
5 Marco Melandri 19.766 ITA BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
6 Loris Baz 23.855 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
7 Jules Cluzel 26.926 FRA SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
8 Carlos Checa 31.593 SPA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
9 Leon Haslam 35.308 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
10 Ayrton Badovini 44.497 ITA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
11 Michel Fabrizio 53.071 ITA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
12 Max Neukirchner 55.223 GER DUCATI MR-Racing
13 Alexander Lundh 1'32.995 SWE KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
14 Ivan Clementi 1'41.979 ITA BMW HTM Racing
15 Jonathan Rea 1 Lap GBR HONDA Pata Honda
16 Federico Sandi DNF ITA KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
17 Vittorio Iannuzzo DNF ITA BMW Grillini DENTALMATIC SBK Team
18 Eugene Laverty DNF IRL APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
19 Mark Aitchinson DNF AUS DUCATI Team Effenbert Liberty Racing


Championship standings

1 Sylvain Guintoli 85 pts FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
2 Chaz Davies 63 pts GBR BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
3 Eugene Laverty 46 pts IRL APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
4 Marco Melandri 43 pts ITA BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
5 Michel Fabrizio 42 pts ITA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
6 Tom Sykes 38 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
7 Jules Cluzel 33 pts FRA SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
8 Loris Baz 31 pts FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
9 Jonathan Rea 30 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
10 Leon Haslam 29 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
11 Davide Giugliano 23 pts ITA APRILIA Althea Racing
12 Max Neukirchner 20 pts GER DUCATI MR-Racing
13 Carlos Checa 17 pts SPA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
14 Leon Camier 14 pts GBR SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
15 Ayrton Badovini 12 pts ITA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
16 Ivan Clementi 9 pts ITA BMW HTM Racing
17 Alexander Lundh 7 pts SWE KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
18 Glen Allerton 6 pts AUS BMW Next Gen Motorsports
19 Federico Sandi 6 pts ITA KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
20 Jamie Stauffer 4 pts AUS HONDA Team Honda Racing
21 Vittorio Iannuzzo 2 pts ITA BMW Grillini DENTALMATIC SBK Team
22 Mark Aitchinson 0 pts AUS DUCATI Team Effenbert Liberty Racing

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