Jonathan Rea and his KRT team-mate Tom Sykes stood on the podium for the second time in two days at Imola, with Rea once more second and Sykes again a close third on their all-new Ninja ZX-10Rs. Jonathan now has a championship lead of 35 points while Tom is third, 32 points from overall second place.

Rea and Sykes rode in tandem at times in the second race of the Imola weekend, which was finally held in dry conditions after heavy overnight rain. Neither KRT rider could get into contention with double race winner Chaz Davies today, despite each making changes for the second race that indicated a positive direction in overall set-up.

Like the first race of the weekend, held on Saturday 30 April, Sykes was just too far back at the end to make a challenge on Rea. Jonathan had to overcome an issue with his electronics cutting out and also almost falling as he ran wide when exiting the slow final chicane in his early pursuit of Davies.

For Rea his two runner-up places keep him in a clear championship lead, 35 points ahead of Davies. Jonathan also maintained his 100% podium record today, having scored ten from ten (including five wins) as he defends his reigning champion status. Rea has now scored 75 podiums in his WorldSBK career.

With two third place finishes at Imola Sykes has now scored seven podiums from ten starts in 2016 and 71 podiums over his career, which includes a world championship win with Kawasaki in 2013. Sykes extended his lead over fourth place in the championship to 48 points today – equivalent to almost two full race wins.

The next round of the championship takes place at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia, with racedays on May 14 and 15.

Jonathan Rea stated: 

“Chaz made a very good first lap and broke me a little bit but then I felt like I was managing the same pace and maybe even faster. Then I had a huge moment on the exit of the last chicane. I ran onto the Astroturf, which had held moisture from last night’s rain. A few laps later, when I was in fifth gear and on full gas, my bike just cut out on the straight. I lost two or three seconds in one lap. It fired into life again but it took me a few corners to relax again. It feels like when we can’t win we should finish second and we did that at Imola. It is clear now that there are three guys now at the top of the championship. Every dog has his day and today was not ours.”

Tom Sykes stated: 

“We made some improvements from yesterday but we suffered after losing almost one hour on Friday in practice. Considering the race yesterday I felt a little bit more comfortable with the bike today but when there was a bike in front I was not able to do a good lap time. I was dropping back into the 1’48s and on a clear track I could bring it into the 1’47s. Even on the last lap there was a 1’47.7 and that was with making a mistake out of the final double lefts. So there are positives to be taken from this weekend. You are never happy with third but you also have to be realistic and sometimes be happy with that. Even when we are struggling we are on the podium.”


Despite crashing then being struck by another rider’s machine in warm-up on Saturday, Swiss rider Dominic Schmitter (Grillini Racing Team Kawasaki) took to the track in race two and scored his first point of the season for 15th place. Saeed Al Sulaiti (Pedercini Racing Team Kawasaki) finished one place behind and just missed his first point score since he joined the WorldSBK championship. Aussie rider Josh Hook (Grillini Racing Team Kawasaki) fell in the middle of the final chicane early in the second race, at almost exactly the same time as stand-in rider for the injured Roman Ramos (Go Eleven Team Kawasaki), Gianluca Vizziello.