Pata Honda rider Jonathan Rea will start tomorrow’s two 21-lap seventh-round World Superbike championship races from the third row of the grid after setting the eighth-fastest time in this afternoon’s Superpole session at the Misano World Circuit ‘Marco Simoncelli’ in Italy.

With air temperatures in the low thirties and the track approaching 50˚C, the 27-year-old British rider fired his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP around the 4.226km Misano circuit in a time of 1m35.675s, 0.8s behind the pole position time of Tom Sykes.

Rea and his Pata Honda team-mate Leon Haslam have been working with their crews to optimise the effect of their CBRs’ engine-braking around Misano’s 16 turns but both riders believe that, while good progress has been made, further efforts are required before tomorrow’s races.

Haslam had two slow crashes in the 15-minute Superpole 2 session today and, although the 31-year-old was uninjured, he will start from 12th position on the grid tomorrow.

Jonathan Rea - P8

I’m quite frustrated with this weekend because we thought Misano would be good for us. But when grip levels drop we really seem to struggle with engine brake issues. We’re having to tune the system for each circuit at the moment and don’t really have a good base setting. We haven’t been able to put our finger on the problem because we we’re OK with fresh tyres in the bike. I feel a bit better for the races tomorrow but eighth seems to be where I’ve been all weekend and I don’t want to be riding around for that again tomorrow. We need to engineer ourselves out of this position and try to find balance to get a smoother sensation from closing throttle to the corner apex and to keep the wheels in line. The crash that I had at the end of practice this morning showed the problem clearl y on the data so we know where to concentrate our efforts. We’ve not been getting the best out of the bike this weekend but we’ll go out tomorrow and give it everything.

Leon Haslam - P12

We’ve made some good steps this weekend and there have been some positives. I was only 0.5s off in Free Practice 3 and ended up seventh, but we had a familiar problem with the qualifying tyre, which usually puts a spanner in the works for us. Two crashes during Superpole were certainly not ideal either, especially as I was on target for a 1m35s and probably something around P7. But we’ve had the same problems as Jonathan really, and we’ve been looking for more stability from the bike. We’ve got some work to do this evening for sure, and we’ll try hard for two good results tomorrow.

Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator

Until the time we had to make grid positions in Superpole, Leon had been making quite good progress this weekend. Unfortunately, his setting didn’t really match the grip of his qualifying tyre and he had a couple of small crashes this afternoon, which is disappointing for him. We’ll try to find out more detail on the problem and improve things for tomorrow. For Jonathan, it’s been a little bit like the last couple of races and we’ve been one step behind on the settings. He’s quite close to the front and had to make some progress after FP2 yesterday, so he’s doing a good job. Hopefully, we can get the last couple of problems sorted for warm-up tomorrow and have two good races.

Qualifying position

1 Tom Sykes 1'34.883 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
2 Davide Giugliano 1'35.079 ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
3 Sylvain Guintoli 1'35.106 FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
4 Loris Baz 1'35.254 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
5 Marco Melandri 1'35.316 ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
6 Toni Elias 1'35.404 SPA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
7 Chaz Davies 1'35.602 GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
8 Jonathan Rea 1'35.675 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
9 Eugene Laverty 1'36.043 IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
10 Niccolo Canepa 1'36.404 ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
11 Alex Lowes 1'36.489 GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
12 Leon Haslam 1'36.515 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
13 David Salom 1'36.843 ESP KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
14 Matteo Baiocco 1'36.931 ITA DUCATI Grandi Corse by A.P. Racing
15 Ayrton Badovini 1'37.038 ITA BIMOTA Team Alstare
16 Claudio Corti 1'37.351 ITA MV AGUSTA MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
17 Sylvain Barrier 1'37.499 FRA BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
18 Ivan Goi 1'37.540 ITA DUCATI BARNI Racing Team
19 Sheridan Morais 1'37.807 RSA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
20 Fabien Foret 1'38.008 FRA KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India
21 Christian Iddon 1'38.170 GBR BIMOTA Team Alstare
22 Jeremy Guarnoni 1'38.308 FRA KAWASAKI MRS Kawasaki
23 Riccardo Russo 1'38.402 ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
24 Alessandro Andreozzi 1'38.850 ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
25 Bryan Staring 1'39.412 AUS KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
26 Imre Toth 1'40.270 HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
27 Aaron Yates 1'40.424 USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
28 Peter Sebestyen 1'40.994 HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
29 Geoff May 1'41.176 USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR

Championship standings

1 Tom Sykes 201 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
2 Sylvain Guintoli 188 pts FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
3 Jonathan Rea 179 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
4 Loris Baz 170 pts FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
5 Marco Melandri 147 pts ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
6 Chaz Davies 130 pts GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
7 Davide Giugliano 96 pts ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
8 Eugene Laverty 90 pts IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
9 Toni Elias 89 pts SPA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
10 Leon Haslam 89 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
11 Alex Lowes 80 pts GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
12 David Salom 56 pts ESP KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
13 Niccolo Canepa 39 pts ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
14 Leon Camier 30 pts GBR BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
15 Jeremy Guarnoni 19 pts FRA KAWASAKI MRS Kawasaki
16 Luca Scassa 16 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
17 Fabien Foret 14 pts FRA KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India
18 Sheridan Morais 10 pts RSA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
19 Claudio Corti 10 pts ITA MV AGUSTA MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
20 Alessandro Andreozzi 8 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
21 Glen Allerton 6 pts AUS BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
22 Kervin Bos 5 pts NED HONDA Winteb LiquidRubber Racing T.
23 Bryan Staring 3 pts AUS KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
24 Michel Fabrizio 2 pts ITA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
25 Imre Toth 2 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
26 Roamin Lanusse 1 pts FRA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
27 Peter Sebestyen 0 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
28 Geoff May 0 pts USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
29 Christian Iddon 0 pts GBR BIMOTA Team Alstare
30 Aaron Yates 0 pts USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR

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