Rea returns to Imola podium

Jonathan Rea finished on the podium for the second time in three races this afternoon, finishing as runner-up in the second of today’s two seventh-round World Superbike championship races at Imola in Italy.

Second place for the 26-year-old Pata Honda rider from Northern Ireland made up for the disappointment of crashing out of today’s 21-lap opener, which was won, like race two, by British rider Tom Sykes.

Rea had got the perfect start to race one, taking the holeshot before running wide at the second chicane of the 4.936km Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari. He rejoined the race in eleventh place and had battled his way up to challenge for third before crashing out unhurt with two laps remaining.

His Pata Honda team-mate, Leon Haslam, took two top ten finishes today, completing his first race since breaking his leg badly at Assen in mid-April. The 30-year-old was tenth in race one and followed it up with ninth place in the second outing, battling right to the end of 21 very tough laps.

Jonathan Rea – DNF and 2nd

Really mixed emotions today. We had really good pace all weekend, but not enough for Tom [Sykes] today, who seemed like he had something in reserve, especially when it got hot this afternoon. I pulled a big ‘holey’ in race one and thought “I’m gone here”, but I had a big vibration the whole race on the brake disc, so I couldn’t push the front like I wanted. I made a mistake on the first lap, but made a lot of ground up and then unfortunately crashed when I was pushing for the podium with a couple of laps to go. In race two I just rode my ass off and made zero mistakes. In the first five laps I couldn’t go with the two guys ahead, so they gapped me and by half distance, Tom had eked out a lead tenth by tenth. I need to work with my crew to make the bike better with a full fuel load and fresh tyres. But it’s clear that we’ve addressed some of the problems we’ve had when the tyres drop. We can leave Imola with ou r heads held high because we’ve addressed some of the issues we had earlier in the season and we look forward now to Moscow.

Leon Haslam – 10th and 9th

You know, if I’d sat it out since my injury and got two top ten results like that on my first race back, I’d be pretty happy, so I’m feeling OK. I know where I’m struggling – I still can’t weight the pegs like I want, but I managed to pass a few people in the second race like Badovini and Cluzel and Checa. So I’ll take that as my start point. I’ve got some testing to do for the 8-hour, a few more weeks of training, then Moscow and we’re still really only halfway through the season. Step by step we’re getting back to where we should be, so I’ll take those two top tens as a big positive for the weeks ahead.

Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator

Jonathan got a really good start in race one but ran off a couple of corners later and had to start over again from further back. It was all running fine until two laps from the end when he pushed a little too hard and crashed. In race two he got another decent start but rode pretty much alone, but we’re quite happy to take a second back home. Again, we’ve had a good race and a bad race, so I hope we can head to Moscow for two good ones. Leon had two quite good races and for us that was quite a breakthrough. He was able not just to complete two races but to fight for positions. He’s still not 100% and if he can ride top ten in that condition, things will only get better. He’s getting more happy with the settings on the bike as well so, with some weeks before Moscow, we can look forward to him being fitter. It was a good day for him.

2012 World Superbike championship, round seven

Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, Imola, Italy – 4.936km, 21 laps

Race 1 result:

1 Tom Sykes (GBR) Kawasaki

2 Davide Giugliano (ITA) Aprilia

3 Eugene Laverty (IRL) Aprilia

4 Marco Melandri (ITA) BMW

5 Michel Fabrizio (ITA) Aprilia

6 Chaz Davies (GBR) BMW

10 Leon Haslam (GBR) Pata Honda

Race 2 result:

1 Tom Sykes (GBR) Kawasaki

2 Jonathan Rea (GBR) Pata Honda

3 Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Aprilia

4 Marco Melandri (ITA) BMW

5 Chaz Davies (GBR) BMW

6 Loris Baz (GBR) Kawasaki

9 Leon Haslam (GBR) Pata Honda

Championship points after 7 of 15 rounds:

1 Sykes 235, 2 Guintoli 229, 3 Laverty 190, 4 Melandri 182, 5 Davies 154, 6 Baz 136, 7 Rea 125,15 Haslam 42

Next round: Moscow Raceway, Russia – 19-21 July