Castrol Honda’s Jonathan Rea was not entirely satisfied with the fifth and sixth place finishes he achieved in the two second-round World Superbike championship races at Donington Park in the UK but believes they were the best he could achieve.

The two 23-lap races at the 4.023km (2.5 mile) Donington circuit were won by Marco Melandri and championship leader Carlos Checa, as Rea’s Castrol Honda team-mate, Ruben Xaus, took another top ten finish in race two.

Opting for the harder rear tyre in race one, Rea was involved in a number of battles but ran across the Esses on lap eleven, dropping back to ninth place before fighting his way back to fifth at the flag. His crew adjusted the engine mapping on his Honda CBR1000RR for the second outing to provide more punch out of Donington’s hairpin at turn 11, but it wasn’t enough to improve traction and Rea was forced to settle for sixth.

Xaus, too, struggled in Donington’s stop-go Melbourne loop section, which contains two hairpins and, with the harder rear to guarantee race distance, the Spaniard could only manage 12th place in race one. He opted for the softer tyre option in the second outing and enjoyed battles for seventh and eighth places before dramatically losing grip towards the end.

Jonathan Rea – 5th and 6th

We got through the weekend OK but five and six is not what we came here for and, by my own standards, “OK” is not good enough. I’ve tried my best all weekend but I got duffed up a bit in race one and maybe could’ve finished a bit higher. In race two, I didn’t make any mistakes and rode as well as I could so it was frustrating when the other guys came past. They seemed to be able to ride away from me quite easily while I was on the maximum. We tried to use the softer tyre during the weekend but it tore up after ten or 12 laps so I’m not sure if it would have made any difference. We’ve got some work to do, I think – especially on the electronics side of things to get driveability off slower corners. Luckily for us, Assen hasn’t got the stop-go slower section that we have here, so I’m looking forward to getting there for a bit of flow. At the end of the day we were sort of ‘on par’ here, but we need to be better than that, especially at this stage in the season. We don’t want the guys at the front to be opening this much of a gap, so we need to be on it from the next round.


Ruben Xaus – 12th and 10th

We went for the harder tyre in race one for safety reasons but I’m not a big lover of hard tyres and I don’t really have enough experience with the bike yet. It was also really cold and I was struggling for a good feeling with the front brake and the gas. We’ve come from Australia, where it was much warmer, I had a month off the bike, and then we come here where it’s been cold, so it’s not been easy. I just wanted to learn in race one and get some points. In race two I went with the A tyre, the one I like that allows me to play a bit more with the bike. I didn’t have such a good start and I think if I could have gone with Lascorz maybe seventh would be my position. I saw Jonathan with five laps to go and wanted to get behind him to have the two Castrol Hondas coming in together. But the tyre was by then destroyed and I got passed by three or four riders, so I had to just keep the tyre together to get home. At the end of this weekend I have had four races, four finishes with points and I’m getting closer to the top guys and my team-mate, so I will take that happily to Assen.

Ronald ten Kate – team manager

Of course we can’t be happy with the results we’ve had here. All weekend we’ve been struggling in that last sector and we weren’t able to fix the bike to improve that situation. On the positive side, we have Assen coming next, which is fast and flowing and will suit our bike a lot better. We have to look into the problems we’ve had here and try to address them. In the second race, Ruben had the soft tyre which proved to be a good choice and he was able to run nearer the front for another solid finish. He has gelled with the bike more here and is having some fun riding, which always helps. Jonathan’s tyre in race two just gave him a bit less grip than we expected and this made his problems a bit bigger because he could hardly stay with the front guys in the first three sectors and was then losing more in the slower section. We’re not happy, but we’re confident that we’re going to do better at our home round.