Pata Honda rider Jonathan Rea took his seventh career podium finish at Portimao in Portugal today by taking third place in race two of the sixth-round World Superbike championship event.

The first 22-lap race was won by Marco Melandri after 26-year-old Rea retired on lap nine with a technical problem. On the same lap, his Pata Honda team-mate, Leon Haslam, also retired – a result of the injury he sustained in a practice crash at Assen in The Netherlands at the end of April.

Starting from 14th place on the grid, Haslam had battled up to tenth before pulling into the pits in discomfort, unable to ride his Honda CBR1000RR in the way he wanted. The 30-year-old opted to withdraw from race two to concentrate on improving his fitness for the next round at Imola in Italy in three weeks.

Starting from the front row of the grid, Rea got a superb start to race two and, from second place, closely tracked eventual race winner, Eugene Laverty, until half race distance when his rear tyre performance began to fall off.

Rea was passed by Sylvain Guintoli but held on to take third place, his seventh podium finish at the 4.592km Autodromo Internacional do Algarve, to maintain his record of at least one podium finish every year since his full World Superbike debut in 2009.

Jonathan Rea – DNF and 3rd

It’s been a frustrating weekend, yet again, but we have a podium to take away from it and I’m quite happy to get back into the podium way. I set a really good pace in the first part of race two and the bike felt really good but, as soon as the grip dropped, the electronics were playing havoc. I can’t turn the traction control up because I slow down even more and, if I turn it off, the bike becomes unrideable. We’re just waiting for some more input, but it hasn’t come yet, which is frustrating. Race one was also disappointing because we’re just having too many mechanical problems this year. It was frustrating to go through that when I was fighting in the top five and two good circuits for us have now been and gone and we haven’t been able to capitalise. Imola is another strong circuit for us, so hopefully we can be back up here again. I want to thank Chris [Pike – crew chief] and everyone who keeps digging deep and working hard, and all the fans for their support, which means a lot at the moment when we’re finding it tough.

Leon Haslam – DNF and DNS

A tough weekend, really, when I’ve been struggling with power in the leg. The knee bend was pretty good, but I just struggled in race one with fatigue in the rest of my body. I couldn’t use my leg properly, so the manhandling of the bike that’s needed round here was done pretty much using my upper body. You don’t realise how much you use your legs on the bike until you can’t use one of them! It’s a little frustrating, but I got eight or nine laps in before I was completely done, and I managed to pass a few people, like Leon Camier, who finished fourth. We’ve made progress from Donington and we have another three weeks until Imola. We’ve also been keeping up to speed on the electronics, which will be useful in the races to come. We haven’t made many chassis changes because a lot of the problems are from me not being able to push through the pegs. I just need to get a bit more strength back in the leg.

Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator

Leon went out in race one and was immediately quite aggressive, getting up into the top ten. Eventually he dropped positions again and finally had to come in. He’s not in a good condition yet and needs to recover some more but I’m quite sure that in Imola we can have another go at it. Jonathan was in fifth position when he had another mechanical problem and this is not good. I can only apologise again for the problem he had with the bike because this is not how things should be. Luckily in race two he was able to get a podium after fighting for the lead and then for second place. That gives us something positive to finish the weekend, but we still need to understand the problems we’ve had lately, and work on them. We can look forward to Imola but, for sure, we have work to do.

Event results - Round 6 - Race 1

1 Marco Melandri 38m12.447s ITA BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
2 Sylvain Guintoli 0.007 FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
3 Tom Sykes 4.224 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
4 Leon Camier 9.479 GBR SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
5 Loris Baz 12.057 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
6 Chaz Davies 16.610 GBR BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
7 Michel Fabrizio 21.350 ITA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
8 Jules Cluzel 22.337 FRA SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
9 Carlos Checa 23.662 SPA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
10 Federico Sandi 1'26.995 ITA KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
11 Vittorio Iannuzzo 1'27.119 ITA BMW Grillini DENTALMATIC SBK Team
12 Ivan Clementi 1'29.096 ITA BMW HTM Racing
13 Max Neukirchner 3 Laps GER DUCATI MR-Racing
14 Ayrton Badovini DNF ITA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
15 Eugene Laverty DNF IRL APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
16 Leon Haslam DNF GBR HONDA Pata Honda
17 Jonathan Rea DNF GBR HONDA Pata Honda
18 Alexander Lundh DNF SWE KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
19 Davide Giugliano DNF ITA APRILIA Althea Racing

Event results - Round 6 - Race 2

1 Eugene Laverty 38m02.051s IRL APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
2 Sylvain Guintoli 4.107 FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
3 Jonathan Rea 5.853 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
4 Loris Baz 15.306 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
5 Chaz Davies 17.552 GBR BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
6 Carlos Checa 18.366 SPA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
7 Jules Cluzel 29.392 FRA SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
8 Ayrton Badovini 38.359 ITA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
9 Davide Giugliano 39.321 ITA APRILIA Althea Racing
10 Michel Fabrizio 44.603 ITA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
11 Max Neukirchner 45.339 GER DUCATI MR-Racing
12 Marco Melandri 45.429 ITA BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
13 Federico Sandi 1'16.310 ITA KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
14 Alexander Lundh 1'16.375 SWE KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
15 Vittorio Iannuzzo 1'18.303 ITA BMW Grillini DENTALMATIC SBK Team
16 Ivan Clementi 1'24.259 ITA BMW HTM Racing
17 Tom Sykes DNF GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
18 Leon Camier DNF GBR SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
19 Leon Haslam DNS GBR HONDA Pata Honda

Championship standings

1 Sylvain Guintoli 213 pts FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
2 Tom Sykes 185 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
3 Eugene Laverty 175 pts IRL APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
4 Marco Melandri 156 pts ITA BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
5 Chaz Davies 133 pts GBR BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
6 Loris Baz 119 pts FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
7 Jonathan Rea 105 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
8 Michel Fabrizio 101 pts ITA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
9 Davide Giugliano 79 pts ITA APRILIA Althea Racing
10 Jules Cluzel 72 pts FRA SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
11 Leon Camier 62 pts GBR SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
12 Max Neukirchner 53 pts GER DUCATI MR-Racing
13 Carlos Checa 50 pts SPA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
14 Ayrton Badovini 45 pts ITA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
15 Leon Haslam 29 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
16 Federico Sandi 23 pts ITA KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
17 Ivan Clementi 18 pts ITA BMW HTM Racing
18 Vittorio Iannuzzo 13 pts ITA BMW Grillini DENTALMATIC SBK Team
19 Niccolo Canepa 11 pts ITA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
20 Alexander Lundh 10 pts SWE KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
21 Fabrizio Lai 8 pts FRA KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
22 Glen Allerton 6 pts AUS BMW Next Gen Motorsports
23 Jamie Stauffer 4 pts AUS HONDA Team Honda Racing
24 Mark Aitchinson 2 pts AUS DUCATI Team Effenbert Liberty Racing
25 Kosuke Akiyoshi 2 pts JPN HONDA Pata Honda

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