Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea won the first of today’s two ninth-round World Superbike championship races at Silverstone in the UK – his 11th series victory – and followed up with fourth in race two, which was stopped early because of rain.

It was a day of mixed conditions at the 5.902km Silverstone circuit, with race one delayed by 20 minutes and shortened by one lap, but starting dry. As light rain began to fall on lap six, however, 26-year-old Rea moved to the front and extended his lead to more than six seconds before easing off in the closing two laps.

Rea’s Pata Honda team-mate, Leon Haslam, climbed as high as third place during the damp conditions of race one, but slipped back to finish seventh at the flag. The 30-year-old crashed out two laps from the end of race two, bringing out the red flags as rain fell once more on the Northamptonshire circuit. Haslam landed heavily on the left leg that he broke in a crash at Assen earlier in the season, although precautionary x-rays revealed no further damage.

Rea got a slow start to race two, circulating in ninth place before making a steady climb towards another podium challenge. However, the red flags prevented any further progress, leaving Rea as the overall Silverstone winner as the Superbike World Championship goes into a month-long summer break.

Jonathan Rea – 1st and 4th

Race one was probably one of the sweetest victories of my career because to ride out-front in those conditions was quite scary. I was so happy for the whole team and our sponsors, but I had to be very cautious. I also had to be smart and, as I saw the gap heading into the last few laps, I didn’t want to be throwing away that kind of lead. My team gave me a great bike after we pulled something out for Superpole that worked in the dry. We made a good change for race two and got up to fourth after I got stuck behind Tom Sykes for a few laps. I lost way too much time at the beginning but I was happy to do a 2m05s lap in the later stages. The race two result was OK but we can go into the summer break happy enough that we’ve got an overall package that can challenge for podiums.

Leon Haslam – 7th and DNF

It’s been a frustrating weekend really and we’ve had issues right the way through until warm-up this morning. We made a big step forward for that and I had pretty good pace in race one, but starting from back in twelfth place was quite hard work. I managed to get up to a position to fight for the podium but made a few mistakes late on and missed out on that. I got a terrible start to race two and got stuck behind Guigliano but started to make my way through and into the top 10. Unfortunately, the rain came and I got caught out with a big highside. My leg’s pretty sore and I’ve got an operation to take some screws out this week. A month off will be good for the leg though, and in Germany I know I’ll be a lot fitter. At least we know the bike’s working in in-between conditions, with Johnny’s race one win, but we’re also still making good progress day-by-day in full dry conditions.

Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator

Both races were rain-affected and conditions got really tricky in race one but Jonathan went to the front and gave us our first win of the season, which we were all delighted with. Leon was really fast in the intermediate conditions but slipped back a bit when it dried up at the end. In race two Jonathan got held up a bit and lost some time, but he got back up to fourth when the rain came back. All-in-all it was a good weekend for him. Leon’s pace was not so good in race two and he crashed, but fortunately he’s OK. The break will do him and everyone in the team some good but we’re looking forward to coming back at the Nurburgring.

Event results - Round 9 - Race 1

1 Jonathan Rea 37m16.058s GBR HONDA Pata Honda
2 Eugene Laverty 3.073 IRL APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
3 Leon Camier 3.480 GBR SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
4 Sylvain Guintoli 3.608 FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
5 Loris Baz 4.140 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
6 Jules Cluzel 5.659 FRA SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
7 Leon Haslam 6.443 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
8 Ayrton Badovini 10.544 ITA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
9 Marco Melandri 14.017 ITA BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
10 Chaz Davies 14.167 GBR BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
11 Tom Sykes 14.180 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
12 Max Neukirchner 26.536 GER DUCATI MR-Racing
13 Carlos Checa 43.561 SPA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
14 Michel Fabrizio 46.373 ITA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
15 Mark Aitchinson 1'33.624 AUS DUCATI Team Effenbert Liberty Racing
16 Federico Sandi 1 Lap ITA KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
17 Vittorio Iannuzzo 2 Laps ITA BMW Team Grillini Dentalmatic
18 Davide Giugliano DNF ITA APRILIA Althea Racing

Event results - Round 9 - Race 2

1 Loris Baz 33m46.622s FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
2 Jules Cluzel 0.609 FRA SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
3 Eugene Laverty 0.869 IRL APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
4 Jonathan Rea 2.145 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
5 Leon Camier 2.229 GBR SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
6 Sylvain Guintoli 2.374 FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
7 Tom Sykes 5.791 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
8 Ayrton Badovini 20.126 ITA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
9 Marco Melandri 20.209 ITA BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
10 Carlos Checa 20.629 SPA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
11 Michel Fabrizio 20.769 ITA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
12 Max Neukirchner 21.407 GER DUCATI MR-Racing
13 Federico Sandi 45.015 ITA KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
14 Mark Aitchinson 45.938 AUS DUCATI Team Effenbert Liberty Racing
15 Davide Giugliano 46.036 ITA APRILIA Althea Racing
16 Vittorio Iannuzzo 1'22.207 ITA BMW Team Grillini Dentalmatic
17 Leon Haslam DNF GBR HONDA Pata Honda
18 Chaz Davies DNF GBR BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team

Championship standings

1 Sylvain Guintoli 262 pts FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
2 Tom Sykes 249 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
3 Eugene Laverty 227 pts IRL APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
4 Marco Melandri 221 pts ITA BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
5 Loris Baz 180 pts FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
6 Chaz Davies 180 pts GBR BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
7 Jonathan Rea 176 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
8 Michel Fabrizio 138 pts ITA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
9 Leon Camier 114 pts GBR SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
10 Jules Cluzel 113 pts FRA SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
11 Davide Giugliano 100 pts ITA APRILIA Althea Racing
12 Ayrton Badovini 91 pts ITA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
13 Max Neukirchner 77 pts GER DUCATI MR-Racing
14 Carlos Checa 68 pts SPA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
15 Leon Haslam 51 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
16 Federico Sandi 36 pts ITA KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
17 Ivan Clementi 18 pts ITA BMW HTM Racing
18 Vittorio Iannuzzo 15 pts ITA BMW Team Grillini Dentalmatic
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 Mark Aitchinson 5 pts AUS DUCATI Team Effenbert Liberty Racing
24 Jamie Stauffer 4 pts AUS HONDA Team Honda Racing
25 Noriyuki Haga 2 pts JPN BMW Team Grillini Dentalmatic
26 Kosuke Akiyoshi 2 pts JPN HONDA Pata Honda

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