Jonathan Rea took a commanding win on his Pata Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP in the second of today’s two third-round World Superbike races at Assen in the Netherlands. It was his fifth win at the 4.542km circuit, his 12th career SBK victory, and a superb follow-up to his third place finish in race one this morning.

Rea’s podium finishes in today’s races extend his record of scoring at least one rostrum finish each season at Assen since 2010, giving him a total of eight in ten races over five years.

Today’s first outing was dry, despite forecast rain, and British rider Rea, 27, settled into a rhythm, but did not have quite enough pace to match eventual winner, Sylvain Guintoli, with Tom Sykes finishing second. The race ended five laps early when oil was dropped on the circuit, Rea’s Pata Honda team-mate Leon Haslam, 30, taking eighth place at the flag.

The rain eventually arrived for race two but not before the race was declared ‘dry’ and started under threatening skies. The first attempt was delayed after the end of the warm-up lap when the rain finally fell in earnest. While some riders lined up on the grid, others, including Haslam, entered the pits to switch from slick tyres to full wets.

The second attempt to start the race was stopped after just three laps when the rain became torrential and red flags were waved. A long wait followed for track conditions to improve, with a shortened 10-lap race finally starting two hours behind schedule.

Rea took the lead on the opening lap and kept his rivals at arms length, eventually crossing the line two seconds ahead of fellow British rider Alex Lowes, with Davide Guigliano finishing third.

Jonathan Rea - 3rd & 1st

It’s been a really good weekend because we’ve been on the podium twice. To be honest, our dry pace was OK in race one but Sylvain [Guintoli] made such a fast start to the race, I struggled to go with him. When Tom [Sykes] went past I made a big mistake but, after that, my pace until the end was quite similar to theirs. For race two we were quite excited to see if we could go with them in the dry but during the break it rained quite heavily. After some delays, we got going for a 10-lap race and to win that was really special. It’s a wet race win around Assen but I kept having flash-backs to Magny-Cours in 2012 when I had a 10-second lead and crashed. For the last laps I just tried to be as smart as I could, and they were long laps, because I had a bit of a gap. I just want to thank all the team. This win’s for all those guys who have worked tirelessly throughout the winter and since the start of the season to make the CBR as strong as possible. It’s great to be able to give them back some good vibes to roll with into the next part of the season.

Leon Haslam - 8th & 5th

Race one was a bit frustrating really because I felt we could have been easily fifth from where we were. The pace wasn’t that mega but we had a lot of issues again this weekend. It wasn’t right in race one but I think fifth was still possible. The flag put an early end to it anyway. I was confident that, for the dry, we’d made the right move for race two but it was wet. In the first part I was already up to fifth when they stopped it but, in part two, I got caught behind Chaz [Davies] and it took me a few laps to get by him. When I passed him, everyone had gone, but I was able to be one of the fastest guys on track in the last three laps. I managed to get past Baz and Melandri and was closing the gap to Tom [Sykes] but then ran out of time. We hadn’t really done any wet testing, so it was positive that we weren’t too far away. The pace was pretty good but starting from where we were on the grid didn’t help either.

Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator

Race one was dry and we were, of course, very happy with Jonathan’s podium, although Leon had one or two other issues. In the wet conditions, and after flags, and delays, we finally went for 10 laps. Jonathan went to the front, built a gap and kept control. It was a really smart, clever race so I’m very happy for him and the whole team. Leon got held up a bit but once he got going he was doing similar lap times to Jonathan. It was a difficult weekend so it’s good to finish this way and we can go to Imola with more confidence.

Event results - Round 3- Race 1

1 Sylvain Guintoli 25m56.636s FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
2 Tom Sykes 1.259 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
3 Jonathan Rea 4.116 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
4 Loris Baz 4.459 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
5 Toni Elias 23.728 SPA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
6 Marco Melandri 25.478 ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
7 Chaz Davies 26.533 GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
8 Leon Haslam 26.696 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
9 Alex Lowes 27.971 GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
10 Niccolo Canepa 33.479 ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
11 Luca Scassa 40.689 ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
12 David Salom 40.803 ESP KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
13 Leon Camier 41.086 GBR BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
14 Claudio Corti 41.410 ITA MV AGUSTA MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
15 Jeremy Guarnoni 41.977 FRA KAWASAKI MRS Kawasaki
16 Sheridan Morais 1'08.454 RSA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
17 Alessandro Andreozzi 1'19.067 ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
18 Kervin Bos 1'19.076 NED HONDA Winteb LiquidRubber Racing T.
19 Geoff May 1'29.475 USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
20 Imre Toth 1 Lap HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
21 Michel Fabrizio DNF ITA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
22 Eugene Laverty DNF IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
23 Aaron Yates DNF USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
24 Peter Sebestyen DNF HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
25 Davide Giugliano DNF ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
26 Fabien Foret DNF FRA KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India
27 Ayrton Badovini DNF ITA BIMOTA Team Alstare
28 Christian Iddon DNF GBR BIMOTA Team Alstare

Event results - Round 3- Race 2

1 Jonathan Rea 19m09.464s GBR HONDA Pata Honda
2 Alex Lowes 2.222 GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
3 Davide Giugliano 4.955 ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
4 Tom Sykes 13.089 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
5 Leon Haslam 13.639 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
6 Marco Melandri 18.041 ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
7 Loris Baz 21.837 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
8 Chaz Davies 26.919 GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
9 Sylvain Guintoli 32.766 FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
10 Niccolo Canepa 37.965 ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
11 Kervin Bos 44.141 NED HONDA Winteb LiquidRubber Racing T.
12 Luca Scassa 1'23.769 ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
13 Sheridan Morais 1'45.062 RSA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
14 Michel Fabrizio 1 Lap ITA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
15 David Salom 1 Lap ESP KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
16 Imre Toth 1 Lap HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
17 Eugene Laverty DNF IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
18 Claudio Corti DNF ITA MV AGUSTA MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
19 Leon Camier DNF GBR BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
20 Alessandro Andreozzi DNF ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
21 Toni Elias DNF SPA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
22 Fabien Foret DNF FRA KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India
23 Jeremy Guarnoni DNF FRA KAWASAKI MRS Kawasaki
24 Christian Iddon DNF GBR BIMOTA Team Alstare
25 Ayrton Badovini DNF ITA BIMOTA Team Alstare

Championship standings

1 Tom Sykes 108 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
2 Sylvain Guintoli 96 pts FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
3 Loris Baz 93 pts FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
4 Jonathan Rea 89 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
5 Marco Melandri 69 pts ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
6 Davide Giugliano 59 pts ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
7 Chaz Davies 47 pts GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
8 Eugene Laverty 46 pts IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
9 Leon Haslam 44 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
10 Alex Lowes 36 pts GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
11 Toni Elias 34 pts SPA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
12 Niccolo Canepa 28 pts ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
13 David Salom 27 pts ESP KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
14 Luca Scassa 11 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
15 Leon Camier 11 pts GBR BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
16 Sheridan Morais 10 pts RSA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
17 Fabien Foret 9 pts FRA KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India
18 Glen Allerton 6 pts AUS BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
19 Kervin Bos 5 pts NED HONDA Winteb LiquidRubber Racing T.
20 Jeremy Guarnoni 5 pts FRA KAWASAKI MRS Kawasaki
21 Claudio Corti 5 pts ITA MV AGUSTA MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
22 Michel Fabrizio 2 pts ITA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
23 Peter Sebestyen 0 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
24 Imre Toth 0 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
25 Geoff May 0 pts USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
26 Alessandro Andreozzi 0 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
27 Aaron Yates 0 pts USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR

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