Jonathan Rea set the sixth fastest time in this afternoon’s opening qualifying session for round five of the World Superbike championship, which takes place at Miller Motorsports Park in the USA on Monday.

The Castrol Honda rider, took his CBR1000RR around the 4.907km circuit just outside Salt Lake City in a time of 1m49.621s as Spain’s Carlos Checa took provisional pole position.

Rea’s team-mate Ruben Xaus set the 14th fastest time without resorting to a softer tyre to improve his time further. With rain forecast for tomorrow, both Castrol Honda riders expect to participate in Superpole to determine final grid positions for Monday’s two 21-lap races.

Jonathan Rea – P6, 1m49.621s

I can certainly see a light at the end of the tunnel with regard to the problems we’ve had here. I’m in a very good rhythm here after the test and that’s allowing me to give some really precise feedback to the guys in the team to help pinpoint the exact areas where we’re struggling. I guess you could say we’re looking forward to tonight and analysing the data to make a plan for tomorrow. We’re still losing a lot on speed and while the gearing is working in some places, we’ve got really low rpm in others where we need the speed. I think, all in all, Carlos looks to be in a different league but our target has to be the podium on Monday – we’re all working hard towards that and I’m excited to see what tomorrow brings.

Ruben Xaus – P14, 1m50.159s

Today has been one of my happiest days on this bike. We’ve made some good progress, and it was helped by being here on Sunday and Monday. We made no big changes during the test, but we did that today and improved by one second. I also stayed with the hard tyre all through the session, while some of the other guys put in the softer tyre for a lap time. The track temperature dropped this afternoon which created some problems, but we kept improving in the changing positions. I hope it stays dry, so we can keep making progress, although the forecast is not good. But it’s been a great sporting day for me, and we witnessed some really top level sport when my team Barcelona won the Champions’ League final, so that has made me very happy, too!

Ronald ten Kate – team manager

Last year we obviously had a difficult time here at Miller so this season we chose to use it as our nominated test track. Unfortunately, the two days we had here gave us a really dirty track and it was very wet for much of the time. Despite that, it was a useful two days and, after the first day of work this weekend, we are really starting to see some signs of improvement. We are certainly not where we want to be yet, but we’re not quite pulling our hair out like we were a bit last year. So, we’re counting on being competitive come Monday.

2011 World Superbike championship, round five – Milller Motorsports Park, USA

First qualifying results:

1 Carlos Checa (ESP) Ducati 1m48.260s
2 Leon Camier (GBR) Aprilia 1m49.055s
3 Max Biaggi (ITA) Aprilia 1m49.306s
4 Tom Sykes (GBR) Kawasaki 1m49.432
5 Troy Corser (AUS) BMW 1m49.552s
6 Jonathan Rea (GBR) Castrol Honda 1m49.621s
14 Ruben Xaus (ESP) Castrol Honda 1m50.149s