Jonathan Rea set the ninth fastest time in Friday’s first qualifying session at Assen in Holland in preparation for Sunday’s two third round World Superbike championship races on Sunday.

Provisional pole position was taken by Czech rider Jakub Smrz as Rea’s Castrol Honda team-mate Ruben Xaus was 14th fastest for a provisional fourth row start for the two 22-lap races around the 4.452km Assen circuit.

With lower track temperatures at Assen this afternoon, Rea and Xaus spent much of the session testing tyre combinations to ensure durability in Sunday’s races, opting to keep back some of their allocation of softer rubber.

Jonathan Rea – P9

We’re satisfied enough with today because we concentrated a lot on track temperature versus tyre combination today. With today’s conditions, some options aren’t working as well as others after about 15 laps and that’s where the races will going to won and lost, I think. It was the correct decision to go down that route today and, while we haven’t used so many tyres, we’ve got through a lot of work. The tyre we used at the end of this afternoon’s session wasn’t going to bring a lap time anyway and we hadn’t finished our race simulation. So I don’t think our position reflects where we actually are today, although there’s still some work to do in the first and middle sectors with the long corners at the back of the circuit. We’ve got some ideas and I was rushing into some corners, which ruined the exit. But we’ve got good data from last year that we can use so it’s not rocket science for us. We’re not out of the ball park and tomorrow I think we can improve our time and our position quite easily, so there’s no drama.

Ruben Xaus – P14

We started well this morning and everything was looking OK but it’s a sensitive machine and at the level, on the limit, small changes can make a big difference. The track temperature was much lower this afternoon and we lost a lot of grip and references from this morning. I think we tried to change too many things this afternoon and I got a bit frustrated at the end. We tested different tyres this afternoon but we don’t have so many quantities of the better front tyre. I’m closer to the front in times and because the bike is still quite new, I need fewer changes to understand what changes are happening. We just need to put in different tyre options and gas it to settle into rhythm. It’s no big deal really, so tomorrow should be better

Ronald ten Kate – team manager

Last year Assen was our test track so we had done a lot of laps prior to the race. Now we need to do all that work during the weekend and instead of rushing into single quick lap times, we’ve concentrated on race settings, especially tyre wear. With the temperature here we’re just on the limit between two options. We’ve found a clear direction there which leaves us some of the softer option to use tomorrow, so I’m quite happy that everyone in the team is working calmly and correctly and moving forward. Tomorrow we’ll try to get both riders further up the grid. Ruben got a bit caught out by the conditions – being in between tyres and changes to the bike. He’s still in a learning curve on the bike but for sure we can improve things for him after a good look at the data this evening.

2011 World Superbike championship, round three – Assen, Netherlands

First qualifying results:

1 Jakub Smrz (CZE) Ducati 1m36.058s
2 Max Biaggi (ITA) Aprilia 1m36.287s
3 Marco Melandri (ITA) Yamaha 1m36.494s
4 Michel Fabrizio (ITA) Suzuki 1m36.550s
9 Jonathan Rea (GBR) Castrol Honda 1m37.063s
14 Ruben Xaus (ESP) Castrol Honda 1m37.424s