Jonathan Rea took sixth and fifth place finishes in today’s two opening races of the 2014 FIM eni World Superbike championship at Phillip Island in Australia. His Pata Honda team-mate Leon Haslam bounced back from a first race crash to take sixth place in race two.

The two 22-lap encounters at the 4.445km Phillip Island circuit, which lies two hours drive south of Melbourne, were won by Eugene Laverty and Sylvain Guintoli, although race two was cut to 14 laps when red flags were waved following a technical problem for Laverty.

Starting from the second row of the grid, 28-year-old Rea got a good start to race one and became involved in a race-long battle with Tom Sykes and Loris Baz. His start to race two was even better and he was fighting for a podium place in the early stages before getting pushed wide and losing touch with the leading group.

In contrast, Haslam did not get a good start to race one and crashed out at the fast turn 12 on the fifth lap. The 30-year-old was unhurt but his crew had to work hard to completely re-build his CBR1000RR Fireblade SP in readiness for race two.

The Pata Honda team will re-group for further testing in Spain at the end of March before round two of the championship takes place at Motorland Aragon on 11-13 April.

Jonathan Rea - 6th/ 5th

I guess we have to be reasonably satisfied with the result here because we’ve made a big improvement over last year here at Phillip Island. It’s clear which areas we need to work on and it’s mostly mechanical grip. In race one, some of the guys struggled with tyre problems because it went the full distance, but I was able to look after my tyre which was a good thing. But we still need to make improvements in that area because the guys at the front had no problems. Race two was unfortunately stopped early because I think I was probably conserving my tyre a little more than I should have been. Sykes passed me into turn one but kind of stopped up in the corner and I lost a lot of places and lost touch with the group so the last few laps were quite boring. But I’m quite happy with everyone on my side of the box – we’ve been making good linear progress. They’re not results to jump up and down about but it’s a good way to start the season. I’m looking forward to getting back to some more conventional circuits in Europe and to aiming a lot higher than we did here.

Leon Haslam - DNF / 6th

I had a big disaster in race one – we had a bit of an electronics issue and then the bike spun from under me at turn 12. We saw what that was and we know the problem in that area but the boys had to work really, really hard to get the bike ready for race two. They put a good setting in the bike that allowed me to run consistent times similar to the leaders’ but we just had a few niggly issues that stopped me getting up to them. Me and Johnny had a good battle and then the race got red flagged. It was disappointing that we didn’t get to have a bit more fun out on the track but fifth and sixth for the team, considering the issues we’ve had, is not so bad. We’ll go back and work hard for the next one – we’ve made some steps forward since Friday but we didn’t get back to where we were at the test, which was a little disappointing. We know why though, and we’ll get it sorted for next time.

Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator

Jonathan was sixth in race one after a race-long battle with the two Kawasakis. Considering our problems during practice and getting the bike set up, I think that was OK. Leon crashed out, unfortunately. In race two Jonathan got a really good start and was battling for a podium place for a long while but he got run wide and that created a gap. Leon’s second race was much, much better. He got a reasonable start and was fighting in the top eight, eventually getting sixth. It was really encouraging and no less than he and his crew deserved after the promising times during the test here. There’s a lot to do, but we have six days of testing before we go to Aragon so we’ll come back strong there.

Event results - Round 1 - Race 1


1 Eugene Laverty 33m39.440s IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
2 Marco Melandri 2.959 ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
3 Sylvain Guintoli 3.034 FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
4 Davide Giugliano 6.972 ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
5 Loris Baz 11.132 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
6 Jonathan Rea 11.718 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
7 Tom Sykes 15.612 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
8 Chaz Davies 25.724 GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
9 David Salom 37.407 ESP KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
10 Niccolo Canepa 37.468 ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
11 Glen Allerton 39.271 AUS BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
12 Fabien Foret 45.212 FRA KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India
13 Claudio Corti 50.249 ITA MV AGUSTA MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
14 Jeremy Guarnoni 1'17.134 FRA KAWASAKI MRS Kawasaki
15 Sheridan Morais 1'23.686 RSA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
16 Imre Toth 1'30.651 HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
17 Aaron Yates 1 Lap USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
18 Alessandro Andreozzi DNF ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
19 Leon Haslam DNF GBR HONDA Pata Honda
20 Alex Lowes DNF GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
21 Toni Elias DNF SPA APRILIA Red Devils Roma

Event results - Round 1 - Race 2

1 Sylvain Guintoli 21m34.034s FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
2 Loris Baz 0.283 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
3 Tom Sykes 1.103 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
4 Davide Giugliano 2.052 ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
5 Jonathan Rea 4.951 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
6 Leon Haslam 5.673 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
7 Chaz Davies 9.664 GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
8 Marco Melandri 10.574 ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
9 Toni Elias 11.682 SPA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
10 David Salom 15.065 ESP KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
11 Niccolo Canepa 16.294 ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
12 Fabien Foret 16.919 FRA KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India
13 Alex Lowes 19.694 GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
14 Sheridan Morais 27.266 RSA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
15 Glen Allerton 27.845 AUS BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
16 Jeremy Guarnoni 29.431 FRA KAWASAKI MRS Kawasaki
17 Alessandro Andreozzi 36.393 ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
18 Claudio Corti 37.018 ITA MV AGUSTA MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
19 Imre Toth 54.093 HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
20 Aaron Yates 1'13.385 USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
21 Eugene Laverty DNF IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki

Championship standings

1 Sylvain Guintoli 41 pts FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
2 Loris Baz 31 pts FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
3 Marco Melandri 28 pts ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
4 Davide Giugliano 26 pts ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
5 Tom Sykes 25 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
6 Eugene Laverty 25 pts IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
7 Jonathan Rea 21 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
8 Chaz Davies 17 pts GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
9 David Salom 13 pts ESP KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
10 Niccolo Canepa 11 pts ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
11 Leon Haslam 10 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
12 Fabien Foret 8 pts FRA KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India
13 Toni Elias 7 pts SPA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
14 Glen Allerton 6 pts AUS BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
15 Sheridan Morais 3 pts RSA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
16 Claudio Corti 3 pts ITA MV AGUSTA MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
17 Alex Lowes 3 pts GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
18 Jeremy Guarnoni 2 pts FRA KAWASAKI MRS Kawasaki
19 Imre Toth 0 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
20 Alessandro Andreozzi 0 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
21 Aaron Yates 0 pts USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR

.