Jonathan Rea will start Sunday’s two fifth round World Superbike championship races from the second row of the grid after setting the sixth fastest time in Saturdays Superpole contest at Donington Park in the UK.

Rea spent much of yesterday evaluating tyres for the two 23-lap races around the historic 4.023km Donington circuit and will start from row two, behind pole sitter Tom Sykes.

Rea’s Honda World Superbike team-mate, Hiroshi Aoyama, narrowly missed out on Superpole after the morning’s second qualifying session and will start the two Donington races from 17th place on the grid.

Jonathan Rea – P6 1m28.546s

Firstly, we achieved our target which was to make Superpole 3, and the bike’s still working really well. I’m having some problems with the wheelie control on the straights and some aggressive power. We’ll try to smooth that off for tomorrow but, at the moment, the race looks a little strange because everyone’s found a little bit of pace with the softer tyre, which is quite fast. We’ve had one looking pretty good after some distance and one looking terrible so we need to evaluate the risk to go with that one, or run with the harder tyre, which is a lot slower, but we know it’ll complete the race in good shape. The bike’s working a lot better than last year so we’re definitely making progress with the CBR and the whole team is working well.

Hiroshi Aoyama – P17 1m30.008s

This morning we weren’t able to improve and the time between me and Berger was very close but, unfortunately, he made it to Superpole and I did not, so I am very disappointed. We have problems in quite a lot of areas, which I hope we can improve for tomorrow’s races. It’s a pity because we started with quite a good feeling on the first day, but today the others kept improving and we were not able to. I can’t push in the areas I want to and it’s quite difficult to pass other riders here, but I’ll do my best in the races and see what happens.

Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator

We have been looking a lot better with Hiroshi than in previous races but unfortunately he just missed out on Superpole, which was a real shame. We had made some progress and he seemed happier with the bike. We expect him to gain a few places in the races and we’re quite optimistic. With Jonathan it was quite hard this morning and we went in slightly the wrong direction with the setting. We also had some electronics issues that needed solving. In the end, we are sixth on the grid, which is OK. The tyre choice depends a lot on the weather, but there is a big gap between the two options. We’ll hope for sun and higher temperatures because that will make the decision a lot easier!

Pole position : 1m27.716s (165.110Km/h) Tom Sykes, Kawasaki
Circuit record lap : 1m29.137s (162.478Km/h) Noriyuki Haga, Aprilia, 2010
Circuit Best Lap : 1m27.716s (165.110Km/h) Tom Sykes, Kawasaki, 2012


Qualifying positions

1 Tom Sykes 1m27.716s (SP3) GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
2 Leon Haslam 0.148 GBR BMW BMW Motorrad Motosport
3 Marco Melandri 0.461 ITA BMW BMW Motorrad Motosport
4 Max Biaggi 0.624 ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
5 Sylvain Guintoli 0.704 FRA DUCATI Team Effenbert Liberty Racing
6 Jonathan Rea 0.830 GBR HONDA Honda World Superbike Team
7 Leon Camier 0.835 GBR SUZUKI Crescent Fixi Suzuki
8 Jakub Smrz 1.069 CZE DUCATI Team Effenbert Liberty Racing
9 Carlos Checa 1m28.497s (SP2) SPA DUCATI Althea Racing
10 Ayrton Badovini 0.117 ITA BMW BMW Motorrad Italia GOLDBET
11 Michel Fabrizio 0.186 ITA BMW BMW Motorrad Italia GOLDBET
12 Eugene Laverty 0.535 IR APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
13 Davide Giugliano 1m29.236s (SP1) ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
14 Niccolo Canepa 0.083 ITA DUCATI Red Devils Roma
15 Maxime Berger 0.135 ITA DUCATI Team Effenbert Liberty Racing
16 Chaz Davies 0.257 GBR APRILIA ParkinGO MTC Racing
17 Hiroshi Aoyama 1'30.008 JPN HONDA Honda World Superbike Team
18 Loris Baz 1'30.237 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
19 Peter Hickman 1'30.296 GBR SUZUKI Crescent Fixi Suzuki
20 Lorenzo Zanetti 1'30.402 ITA DUCATI PATA Racing Team
21 Mark Aitchison 1'31.102 AUS BMW Grillini Progrea Superbike Team
22 Leandro Mercado 1'31.540 ARG KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
23 Gary Mason 1'33.103 GBR KAWASAKI Team Pedercini

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