Sylvain Guintoli scored his first podium of the 2016 season today, taking his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP to third place in the first of two 12th round World Superbike championship races at Magny-Cours in France.

His Pata Honda team-mate, Michael van der Mark, also put in two stunning performances, starting from 15th place on the grid and taking fourth place in each of today’s races, both of which were won by Jonathan Rea.

Guintoli was relishing the prospect of a wet race after yesterday’s rain failed to dry overnight and he was duly rewarded with a damp 4.411km track this morning. Starting from fifth place on the grid, the 33-year-old delighted the partisan crowd with a good start and kept in touch with the leaders, passing Chaz Davies for third and never looking back.

The French rider was not so confident with his dry set-up but those were the conditions as race two began. After another strong start, Guintoli settled into a relatively lonely sixth place and brought his CBR home for a solid points haul.

Van der Mark endured a difficult qualifying session yesterday at Magny-Cours and ended up on the outside of the fifth row of the grid. However, superb starts in both races allowed him to get close to the leading riders in both wet and dry conditions.

In race two particularly, the 22-year-old Dutch ace showed impressive pace by riding around the outside of Leon Haslam on to the back straight at Magny-Cours. Van der Mark’s times in the closing laps of the race matched those of the podium finishers and he takes renewed confidence into the final round of the season at Losail in Qatar in two weeks.

Sylvain Guintoli - 3rd and 6th

It was good to grab the opportunity with the wet conditions in race one and bring home the first podium of the season. Race two was dry but it was OK – P6 was not too bad, and I would definitely have taken that yesterday morning. We made a few changes from the last dry session in FP4 yesterday to improve the pace and we used the SC0 tyre. I thought the other tyre would drop in performance but the guys in front seemed to be on that one. The important thing was that it was two solid races. To be on the podium at home was what I really wanted to do, so it’s been a good performance from the whole team. Now we’re looking forward to the final round in Qatar to finish the season on a high.

Michael van der Mark - 4th and 4th 

It’s been an awesome day because we’ve had some problems all weekend, not only on Friday and Saturday but also in Superpole yesterday. I wasn’t really happy and then the warm-up was wet this morning. It was OK though, and I had such a good start to race one. I took a lot of risks but the bike felt really good, even though I missed a bit of acceleration. I was really happy with fourth and happy for Sylvain to be on the podium because he also worked really hard. For race two we changed some settings on the front for the dry and it worked perfectly. I got a really good start again and fought my way round the outside and ended up in a nice battle with Sylvain. There was a gap to Leon [Haslam] and I had to make a bit of a move to get by him. Our bike is not quite as fast as his and I had to make so much spee d going on to the back straight that I had no choice really. I was not really sure about making the move but I was quite happy with how it worked out! Then I saw the pace of Sykes in third was dropping a little so I kept pushing in case it dropped more. But I’m really happy with another fourth place and want to thank the guys in my crew who did a fantastic job today.

Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator 

The conditions were strange today with a wet race and a dry race, but we know that Sylvain is strong in the wet. We’re very happy to finally get a podium with him at his home race, and it’s great for his team, too. Michael started from 15th on the grid and got a good start in race one. He caught Sylvain but then had a little problem and had to slow the pace a bit. He raced really well in race two and passed Haslam to secure another fourth with a fantastic manoeuvre and then was matching the lap times of the race winner, so well done to Mikey and his team.

Event results - Round 12- Race 1  

1 Jonathan Rea 36'29.856 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team 
2 Tom Sykes 4.711 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
3 Sylvain Guintoli 14.683 FRA HONDA Pata Honda
4 Michael van der Mark 22.772 NED HONDA Pata Honda
5 Leon Camier 30.136 GBR MV AGUSTA MV Agusta Repart Corse
6 Chaz Davies 31.528 GBR DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
7 Matteo Baiocco 32.129 DUCATI Althea Racing
8 Alex Lowes 39.034 GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
9 Leandro Mercado 1'01.396 DUCATI BARNI Racing Team
10 Niccolo Canepa 1'07.845 ITA KAWASAKI Grillini SBK Team
11 Gianluca Vizziello 1'09.622 ITA KAWASAKI Grillini SBK Team
12 Jordi Torres 1'16.782 ESP APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils
13 Luca Scassa 1'19.531 ITA DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
14 Ayrton Badovini 1'26.459 ITA BMW JR Racing Team
15 Roman Ramos 1'30.260 ESP KAWASAKI Team Go Eleven
16 Leon Haslam 1 Lap GBR APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils
17 Gabor Rizmayer 1 Lap HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
18 Christophe Ponsson 1 Lap KAWASAKI Grillini SBK Team

Event results - Round 12- Race 2  

1 Jonathan Rea 34'40.147 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team 
2 Chaz Davies 2.848 GBR DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
3 Tom Sykes 6.551 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
4 Michael van der Mark 10.202 NED HONDA Pata Honda
5 Leon Haslam 12.921 GBR APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils
6 Sylvain Guintoli 19.885 FRA HONDA Pata Honda
7 Niccolo Canepa 24.248 ITA KAWASAKI Grillini SBK Team
8 Jordi Torres 27.248 ESP APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils
9 Luca Scassa 29.220 ITA DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
10 Alex Lowes 32.799 GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
11 Matteo Baiocco 37.183 DUCATI Althea Racing
12 Leandro Mercado 37.347 DUCATI BARNI Racing Team
13 Markus Reiterberger 43.676 GER BMW VanZon Remeha BMW
14 David Salom 45.943 ESP KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
15 Leon Camier 47.982 GBR MV AGUSTA MV Agusta Repart Corse

Championship standings  

1 Jonathan Rea 528 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team 
2 Chaz Davies 383 pts GBR DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
3 Tom Sykes 367 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
4 Leon Haslam 297 pts GBR APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils
5 Jordi Torres 222 pts ESP APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils
6 Sylvain Guintoli 201 pts FRA HONDA Pata Honda
7 Michael van der Mark 170 pts NED HONDA Pata Honda
8 Matteo Baiocco 138 pts DUCATI Althea Racing
9 Alex Lowes 136 pts GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
10 Leandro Mercado 125 pts DUCATI BARNI Racing Team
11 Davide Giugliano 119 pts ITA DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
12 Ayrton Badovini 92 pts ITA BMW JR Racing Team
13 Leon Camier 89 pts GBR MV AGUSTA MV Agusta Repart Corse
14 Roman Ramos 71 pts ESP KAWASAKI Team Go Eleven
15 David Salom 67 pts ESP KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
16 Nicolas Terol 54 pts ESP DUCATI Althea Racing
17 Niccolo Canepa 47 pts ITA KAWASAKI Grillini SBK Team
18 Randy de Puniet 39 pts FRA SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
19 Xavi Fores 38 pts DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
20 Max Biaggi 36 pts ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team - Red Devils
21 Michele Pirro 35 pts ITA DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
22 Santiago Barragan 17 pts KAWASAKI Grillini SBK Team
23 Troy Bayliss 16 pts DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
24 Michel Fabrizio 13 pts ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
25 Christophe Ponsson 11 pts KAWASAKI Grillini SBK Team
26 Luca Scassa 10 pts ITA DUCATI Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Superbike Team
27 Sylvain Barrier 10 pts FRA BMW BMW Motorrad Italia Superbike Team
28 Gianluca Vizziello 8 pts ITA KAWASAKI Grillini SBK Team
29 Markus Reiterberger 6 pts GER BMW VanZon Remeha BMW
30 Imre Toth 5 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
31 Gabor Rizmayer 3 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
32 Jed Metcher 2 pts KAWASAKI Race Center - Demolition Plus
33 Larry Pegram 2 pts EBR Team Hero EBR
34 Anucha Nakcharoensri 0 pts HONDA YSS TS Racing
35 Javier Alviz 0 pts KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
36 Ireneusz Sikora 0 pts BMW BMW Team Toth
37 Greg Gildenhuys 0 pts KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
38 Chanon Chumjai 0 pts BMW RAC Oil Racing Team