Rea fourth in Spanish sun

Jonathan Rea took a fourth place finish in today’s opening second-round World Superbike championship race at Motorland Aragon in Spain but his Pata Honda team had little else to show for its hard work over the weekend and in two tests leading up to the races.

Today’s two outings at the 5.344km circuit – run under clear blue skies and with temperatures in the mid-twenties – were both won by Chaz Davies as Rea battled for a possible podium in the first 20-lapper.

His result underlined the steps forward made by his team since testing at Motorland Aragon two weeks ago, but the 26-year-old Northern Irishman was unable to match that performance in race two. A broken brake-adjuster forced him to pit, although he rejoined the race to take a solitary point in 15th place.

His Pata Honda team-mate, Leon Haslam, took two ninth-place finishes, with brake issues of his own affecting both his races this afternoon. The 29-year-old made some adjustments after race one, but was unable to fight for a better result.

The team will now re-group and target a strong come-back at its home race at Assen in The Netherlands in two weeks’ time.

Jonathan Rea – 4th and 15th

It’s hard to know what to say, really, because it was clear that we were on a bit of a high coming to the races here after the test two weeks ago. Immediately on Friday morning the bike felt a lot better and we worked really hard with the guys all weekend and put in a long run to understand the electronics setting. I feel that we got it in a satisfactory area where I was happy to push, but I’m disappointed with the overall performance. In the races I was unable to compete with the guys around me on the straight, which made riding the rest of the circuit very intense. In race one we had a game plan that worked out better than we expected because a few riders had some misfortune. We plugged away and were there to pick up the pieces and finished fourth. For me it felt like a podium because we’ve come from a long way back and we kind of had the feeling that we were climbing a ladder. Then in race two it was like someone kicked me back of f it because I had a problem with the brake adjuster. The brake kept winding itself in and for one lap I tried to ride with it but the lever was coming back to the bar. I was going to be a risk to other riders so I came in to fix that. Again, my pace was strong when I rejoined which is a real shame because I felt like we deserved some more points in race two. We go to Assen with no more testing which gives the guys some downtime. I think we all need it because we’ve had a lot of testing recently, but we’ll hopefully learn from these issues and start again in Assen.

Leon Haslam – 9th and 9th

It was a tough start to the weekend with the issues we had on Friday and then Saturday even more so with the crash in qualifying and then the technical problem with a broken sensor in FP2. We finally got the bike running in Superpole, which I was really happy about and we found a really good amount of time. Today we’ve just had brake issues. Race one was worse than race two but the problems have kind of determined our results and they are long old races when you have those kind of problems.

Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator

We were quite happy with Jonathan’s fourth in race one. It was a pretty good result considering the problems we had in testing here, trying to find a setting for the electronics. Fourth was more than we could have hoped for, really, so well done to him for that. Unfortunately in race two he had a problem and had to pull in to get it fixed. He got fifteenth in the end but that was not what he deserved. You could see from the lap times that he could have aimed for another fourth or fifth, maybe sixth, but we apologise to him for that. I think he will be strong again in Assen and we hope he can fight for the podium. Leon got two ninths which was a bit disappointing but the reasons were obvious. He had some braking issues and that’s a pity because we found a good overall setting for the bike yesterday. If he hadn’t experienced those problems, I’m sure he would have been fighting for similar positions to Jonathan. We’ll keep w orking, stay positive and head for our home track at Assen.

2012 World Superbike championship, round two

Motorland Aragon, Spain – 5.344km, 20 laps

Race 1 result:

1 Chaz Davies (GBR) BMW

2 Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Aprilia

3 Marco Melandri (ITA) BMW

4 Jonathan Rea (GBR) Pata Honda

5 Loris Baz (FRA) Kawasaki

6 Jules Cluzel (FRA) Suzuki

9 Leon Haslam (GBR) Pata Honda

Race 2 result (19 laps):

1 Chaz Davies (GBR) BMW

2 Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Aprilia

3 Tom Sykes (GBR) Kawasaki

4 Davide Guigliano (ITA) Aprilia

5 Marco Melandri (ITA) BMW

6 Loris Baz (FRA) Kawasaki

9 Leon Haslam (GBR) Pata Honda

15 Jonathan Rea (GBR) Pata Honda

Championship points after 2 of 15 rounds:

1 Guintoli 85, 2 Davies 63, 3 Laverty 45, 4 Melandri 43, 5 Michel Fabrizio (ITA) Aprilia, 6 Sykes 38, 7 Cluzel 38, 8 Baz 31, 9 Rea 30, 10 Haslam 29

Next round: TT Circuit Assen, Netherlands – 26-28 April