Portimao WSBK - Continuing electronic issues cloud Rea's podium

Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea is happy that he made it on to the third step of the podium in the second World Superbike race at Portimao, but his joy was tempered by electronic and mechanical issues affecting his race weekend.

In race one, the Irishman was in fifth place but an engine issue after going wide on lap eight put a premature end to his race one ambitions. The Northern Irishman is still experiencing problems with his bike and hopes the issues will be rectified soon, so he can progress in the championship.

“I am really happy to be back on the podium first of all, but it is hard to be ecstatic about it because of the problems we had in race one,” said Rea, speaking to bikesportnews.com at the circuit.

“In race two it was a typical problem with electronics that we have been suffering with these last couple of races. When the tyre drops down the traction control is not helping at all, and I have to turn the traction control down, but by doing that is making the bike quite un-rideable. It is quite an underlying problem with the mapping that we can’t sort out at the track, and we are waiting from some support from Honda.

“The more the tyre wears the more spin it has and the more the electronics are cutting, but the more I turn it off the more unstable the bike becomes. I didn’t suffer this problem last year, so with the new electronics maybe we can learn something from that, but I think it is more of an underlying problem in the software, rather than in the traction control settings.”

But after all that Rea is pleased with how he is riding, and was impressed with the speeds he was able to reach out on the Portimao circuit.

“I feel that I am riding pretty good, especially at the beginning of the race where I had grip, I didn’t really think I would be in the 1’42’s, I thought it would be a slower race to be honest. I am happy to go with Eugene and he set a great pace and it was a great win, but we have got more problems to worry about.”

By David Miller at Portimao

Image by Ian Ward