Jonathan Rea and Leon Haslam have left Phillip Island in Australia with a solid points haul following today’s opening round of the 2013 World Superbike championship. The two races were won by Sylvain Guintoli and Eugene Laverty.

In warm and dry conditions, the new Pata Honda duo fought tyre degradation and electronics issues around the 4.445km Phillip Island circuit to bring their CBR1000RR Fireblades home for four points finishes.

In race one, Haslam had a good start from the third row of the grid and was battling for a podium finish for 18 laps before tyre problems dropped him back to seventh at the flag. After a slower start to race two, the 29-year-old British rider got caught in a first lap melée at turn 10 when two other riders crashed. He dropped back several places, losing touch with the leading group and eventually finishing 10th.

Jonathan Rea finished eighth in both today’s 22-lap outings, the second being his 100th World Superbike race start. The 26-year-old from Northern Ireland scored a total of 16 points, despite issues with electronics and tyres and leaves Phillip Island tied for sixth place in the overall SBK points standings.


Jonathan Rea – race one 8th; race two 8th

It’s been a strange weekend, and it’s frustrating for us all to look at the classifications and see where we are because I don’t feel that it’s a true reflection of where we deserve to be. On the other side of that, it’s clear how much effort we’re going to have to put in to make the electronics better. It’s our main problem right now because back at the team’s workshop we found a little bit of power for the engine for this event and I know there’s another plan to develop that. It’s clear we need to make a couple of steps forward and bypass where we were the electronics last year. I feel there’s a light at the end of the tunnel though because I’ve already got some positive feelings with the new system. There are just a few inconsistencies when getting on the throttle with the traction control cutting in and holding back the engine. We made some positive steps with the bike between race one and two, and we’ve got a three-day test at Aragon, which we really need. Two finishes is always the aim for the first race, but we leave here still with work to do.

Leon Haslam – race one 7th; race two 10th

It’s been a bit of a disappointing day. We had some issues that we couldn’t overcome in race one and I ended up heading backwards. It felt like I had the pace to challenge for a rostrum but I was held back in a couple of areas. In race two we made some positive changes but I had a bad start and then got caught in the melée with two other riders crashing out down at the MG hairpin on lap one. I lost around 10 or 11 seconds that would have allowed me to battle for third or fourth again if I hadn’t lost that time. There are a lot of ‘if’s and ‘but’s, and we’ve got a lot of work to do in this next month to try to resolve a few issues.

Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator

We learned a lot today. We also learned that we have some more work to close the gap to our competitors and I’m happy that we’re going testing next. Leon had a tremendous start to race one and he was battling at the front for a podium. Unfortunately some set-up problems pulled him back a little. Jonathan didn’t have such a good tyre in race one and it was spinning up quite a lot earlier than Leon’s, so he wasn’t able to battle for anything. Leon didn’t have such a good start to race two and got caught in a bit of hassle, which meant he had to start again from the back. He was pushing forward but some problems with the bike meant he couldn’t do consistent lap times. Jonathan had a good start to race two and the bike and tyre worked better, but not better enough. We’ll learn from the data and make a good test plan for Aragon to overcome these problems.

Pole position : 1m30.234s (177.339Km/h) Carlos Checa, Ducati, 2013
Fastest lap : Race 2 - Lap 20 - 1m31.168s (175.220Km/h) Eugene Laverty, Aprilia
Circuit record lap : 1m31.168s (175.220Km/h) Eugene Laverty, Aprilia, 2013
Circuit Best Lap : 1m30.234s (177.339Km/h) Carlos Checa, Ducati, 2013


Round 1 - Race 1

1 Sylvain Guintoli 33m47.109s FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
2 Eugene Laverty 1.352 IRL APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
3 Michel Fabrizio 1.359 ITA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
4 Chaz Davies 5.702 GBR BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
5 Tom Sykes 5.753 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
6 Loris Baz 6.769 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
7 Leon Haslam 6.830 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
8 Jonathan Rea 17.944 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
9 Leon Camier 19.152 GBR SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
10 Max Neukirchner 26.557 GER DUCATI MR-Racing
11 Jules Cluzel 30.305 FRA SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
12 Ivan Clementi 30.411 ITA BMW HTM Racing
13 Alexander Lundh 45.185 SWE KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
14 Glen Allerton 48.632 AUS BMW Next Gen Motorsports
15 Jamie Stauffer 53.453 AUS HONDA Team Honda Racing
16 Federico Sandi 1'22.730 ITA KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
17 Vittorio Iannuzzo 4 laps ITA BMW Grillini DENTALMATIC SBK Team
18 Carlos Checa DNF SPA DUCATI Team Ducati Alstare
19 Marco Melandri DNF ITA BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
20 Davide Giugliano DNF ITA APRILIA Althea Racing

Round 1 - Race 2

1 Eugene Laverty 33m45.938s IRL APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
2 Sylvain Guintoli 0.418 FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
3 Marco Melandri 1.382 ITA BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
4 Michel Fabrizio 2.282 ITA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
5 Tom Sykes 11.545 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
6 Davide Giugliano 12.508 ITA APRILIA Althea Racing
7 Jules Cluzel 17.330 FRA SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
8 Jonathan Rea 17.339 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
9 Leon Camier 19.886 GBR SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
10 Leon Haslam 19.996 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
11 Max Neukirchner 27.629 GER DUCATI MR-Racing
12 Glen Allerton 42.809 AUS BMW Next Gen Motorsports
13 Jamie Stauffer 42.893 AUS HONDA Team Honda Racing
14 Federico Sandi 44.899 ITA KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
15 Alexander Lundh 57.824 SWE KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
16 Vittorio Iannuzzo 1'22.574 ITA BMW Grillini DENTALMATIC SBK Team
17 Chaz Davies 2 laps GBR BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
18 Ivan Clementi DNF ITA BMW HTM Racing
19 Loris Baz DNF FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team


Championship standings

1 Sylvain Guintoli 45 pts FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
2 Eugene Laverty 45 pts IRL APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
3 Michel Fabrizio 29 pts ITA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
4 Tom Sykes 22 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
5 Marco Melandri 16 pts ITA BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
6 Jonathan Rea 16 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
7 Leon Haslam 15 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
8 Leon Camier 14 pts GBR SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
9 Jules Cluzel 14 pts FRA SUZUKI Fixi Crescent Suzuki
10 Chaz Davies 13 pts GBR BMW BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team
11 Max Neukirchner 11 pts GER DUCATI MR-Racing
12 Loris Baz 10 pts FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
13 Davide Giugliano 10 pts ITA APRILIA Althea Racing
14 Glen Allerton 6 pts AUS BMW Next Gen Motorsports
15 Jamie Stauffer 4 pts AUS HONDA Team Honda Racing
16 Ivan Clementi 4 pts ITA BMW HTM Racing
17 Alexander Lundh 4 pts SWE KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
18 Federico Sandi 2 pts ITA KAWASAKI Pedercini Team
19 Vittorio Iannuzzo 0 pts ITA BMW Grillini DENTALMATIC SBK Team

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