Castrol Honda rider Jonathan Rea has declared himself happy with his return to the World Superbike championship after today’s opening practice and qualifying sessions for Sunday’s tenth round races at the Nurburgring in Germany.

With the morning free practice starting in wet conditions, Rea ended the session on a fully dry track in seventh place and held the same position after this afternoon’s qualifying session, which was headed by Max Biaggi.

After a two-day test at Assen in the Netherlands last week, Rea suffered no ill effects from the wrist injury that has kept him out of action for almost three months, but the 24-year-old from Northern Ireland says he needs a little more time to find a good rhythm on his Castrol Honda CBR1000RR.

His team-mate for this weekend, Makoto Tamada, rode a Pirelli-shod Honda Fireblade for the first time today and the Japanese rider finished the day in 20th position, but he and his crew are confident of an improvement in his lap times tomorrow.

Jonathan Rea – P7

Today was OK but we ran into some problems with the weather this morning when no-one was quite up to speed, which made it difficult to define where we were. This afternoon was fully dry and we were able to get down to some respectable lap times. I’ve been using some new softer rubber from Pirelli for the first time, although I think it’s been available for the other riders at a couple of races already. It was much better straight away but we still need to see what the tyre life is like at these temperatures. I was disappointed to make a few mistakes during the last stint, which prevented me from improving the lap time further, but I’m not quite back into a rhythm yet. I am pretty confident that we can improve more tomorrow with some changes to the engine braking. My wrist feels good, though and I’m looking forward to another full day on it tomorrow.

Makoto Tamada – P20

Well the position is not so good and the lap time can definitely improve, but today was my first time on the bike here so there is very much to learn. The team has helped me to look for a good setting on the CBR today, but the wet start this morning did not help us very much. I hope tomorrow the weather will be dry so I can complete as many laps as possible and find the opportunity to make some good changes to the bike. I think I can improve my riding, too, so if we can do both these things I will be happy!





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