Jonathan Rea secured a provisional front row start for Sunday’s final World Superbike championship round at Portimao in Portugal after setting the fourth fastest time in this afternoon’s opening qualifying session.

The Castrol Honda rider had earlier headed the morning free practice session and declared himself happy with progress and a time just three tenths of a second behind provisional pole sitter Carlos Checa.

Eugene Laverty and Sylvain Guintoli took the other two provisional front row positions with the third and fourth fastest times respectively. Meanwhile, Rea’s team-mate for the weekend, Karl Muggeridge, who is replacing the injured Ruben Xaus, was 20th fastest.

Jonathan Rea – P4 1m43.895s

It wasn’t a bad start to the weekend but we’re still working on making the bike more rideable. It’s all about momentum here and we need to make it easier to carry speed all the way round the lap. We’re working on power delivery at the moment but we’re not in a bad position. At the end we tried a slightly different engine specification which was really good but maybe a little too aggressive for this circuit. On my preferred race bike I’m quite happy and we’ve got some things to try tomorrow to make things easier.

Karl Muggeridge – P20 1m46.116s

It was a hard day and I’m still a little lost on the track to be honest. It’s been a while since I rode here and I just need some more time and laps to get my head around the place. The bike’s also new and I haven’t ridden on Pirellis for a while, so I guess it’s OK. I’m rushing things, instead of letting the time come – it’s like I’m late for a dinner appointment. Everywhere! The bike’s working well and I’m getting used to it but I need to calm down and work it all out. It should be under control tomorrow after a good night’s rest, when I’ve had a chance to process all that information.

Ronald ten Kate – team manager

Things are going reasonably well so far. The bike’s getting better and better with all the adjustments we’re making. Tomorrow we’ll concentrate on some longer runs with a race tyre. With Karl, it was always going to be different to step in at short notice on completely different machinery – especially on this roller-coaster circuit at Portimao where he hasn’t ridden for a long time. But he’s constantly getting faster so we’ll work hard to get him into Superpole tomorrow.

2011 World Superbike championship, round 13 – Portimao, Portugal
First qualifying results:

1 Carlos Checa (ESP) Ducati 1m43.579s
2 Eugene Laverty (IRL) Yamaha 1m43.666s
3 Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Ducati 1m43.860s
4 Jonathan Rea (GBR) Castrol Honda 1m43.895s
20 Karl Muggeridge (AUS) Castrol Honda 1m46.116s

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