Jonathan Rea posted the seventh fastest time in this afternoon’s opening qualifying session for Sunday’s World Superbike championship races at the Nurburgring in Germany.

The 25-year-old Honda World Superbike Team rider returned to his familiar CBR1000RR Fireblade after spending two days testing with the Repsol Honda MotoGP team in Spain earlier this week. However, Rea was quickly back into the groove and was less than a tenth of a second from a provisional front row slot.

Carlos Checa took provisional pole position today in preparation for Sunday’s two 20-lap races at the 5.137km Nurburgring circuit as Rea’s Honda team-mate, Hiroshi Aoyama, rode at the historic circuit for the first time.

The 30-year-old Japanese enjoyed the circuit very much but admitted that he needs further laps to familiarise himself with the undulating and bumpy layout.

Jonathan Rea – P7, 1m55.891s

Things are rolling along OK. I’ve been doing a lot of laps and familiarising myself with my CBR1000RR but we’re just lacking a little bit of control off the corner. It’s a bit to do with the electronics, which need to be a little smoother, and the chassis setting, which needs to improve. Tomorrow morning we’ll focus on that and try to put some laps on a tyre in free practice to confirm our race choice, which is between two right now. So we’re kind of on target – it’s very, very close at the top and I’ve no doubt that we can make the right settings to challenge tomorrow.

Hiroshi Aoyama – P20, 1m58.286s

The racetrack is very nice and I like it a lot. At the same time, it’s very difficult, because there are a lot of ups and downs and some corners you cannot see. Some corners are very fast and some are very bumpy, so there are a lot of different corners here. It’s interesting and fun but to find a good way is not so easy. We improved 1.5 seconds from this morning to the afternoon and I hope we can do the same tomorrow. Then we can hope for Superpole again in the afternoon.

Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator

It’s a new circuit for Hiroshi and he just needs laps. He asked us not to change the bike very much and to let him do laps. He’s improving every time he goes out and hopefully he can improve more tomorrow because we need to make some time up. Jonathan had quite a good session this morning and the bike felt pretty good and he did a reasonable time. We struggled a little this afternoon and we’re still looking for a better setting at the front. Also the mapping needs a little work and these things stopped us improving and being consistent this afternoon. With a soft set of tyres we’re as fast as anyone and there were a lot of 55.8s out there today!


2012 World Superbike championship - round 12, Nurburgring, Germany

First qualifying results:

1 Carlos Checa (ESP) Ducati 1m55.307s

2 Davide Giugliano (ITA) Ducati1m55.750s

3 Tom Sykes (GBR) Kawasaki 1m55.802s

4 Eugene Laverty (IRL) Aprilia 1m55.813s

5 Leon Haslam (GBR) BMW 1m55.828s

6 Max Biaggi (ITA) Aprilia 1m55.838s

7 Jonathan Rea (GBR) Honda World Superbike Team 1m55.891s

20 Hiroshi Aoyama (JPN) Honda World Superbike Team 1m58.286s

.