Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea will start tomorrow’s two eighth-round World Superbike Championship races from the front row of the grid after setting the second-fastest time in this afternoon’s Superpole qualifying session at the Autodromo Internacional Algarve in Portugal.

After topping the combined free practice timing sheets this morning, Rea, 27, took his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP into Superpole in confident mood to lap the 4.593km Portimao circuit in a time of 1m42.765s, 0.2s behind the pole position time of Tom Sykes.

Rea’s Pata Honda team-mate, Leon Haslam, was also in a positive frame-of-mind heading into Superpole after showing good speed in both today’s free practice sessions. The 31-year-old was just 0.1s from Rea's fastest time in FP3 when the top ten riders were separated by just three tenths of a second.

As Superpole 2 began, Haslam set the third-fastest time on his initial run on race rubber, but was unable to significantly improve his time on the qualifying tyre and he will start tomorrow’s two 20-lap races from the third row of the grid in ninth place.

Jonathan Rea - P2

It was really windy for qualifying this afternoon and we made quite a big change to the set-up on the rear of the bike for Superpole after we’d compared data with Leon. It looked like he had a little bit more grip and it’s really good that he’s also on a good pace here this weekend because we can share data much better and I’m also learning some things from him. We’ve made a lot of progress here compared to the last few races and I’m really enjoying riding my bike here. We’ve gone back to basics, to something we know, and it’s good to come to Portimao where we have a lot of data. I’m really excited about tomorrow’s races. We’ve done a lot of laps on old tyres so we’ll have to wait and see if all that hard work will pay off.

Leon Haslam - P9

Obviously I’m disappointed because I was P3 on the race tyre and I felt pretty confident that we could make another step with the qualifying tyre. On the first lap I had a small problem so I cruised to try and get some more life from the tyre. I had another problem going into turn five on the second lap and my best time ended up being on lap three when the tyre was finished. It’s kind of frustrating because we’ve definitely been in the ball park to get back to the front boys there. But I’m feeling really good on the race tyre, we’ve done some good race runs so I’m looking forward to the two races tomorrow.

Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator

It's been quite an exciting day and this morning we made quite a good breakthrough with Jonathan's electronics settings. He immediately went quick on used tyres and the feeling was back. In the afternoon for FP4 we tried a few settings changes which didn't really work so we went back to the morning set-up. He took second place on the grid which is a good place to start. He normally goes quite well here so I expect him to be in the fight for podium finishes tomorrow. Leon has been going extremely well this weekend and his pace is also good on used tyres. However, with the qualifier in Superpole, he got ninth on the grid but, just before putting in the qualifier, he was third fastest on the race tyre. That was a bit of a shame but everything is looking good for tomorrow and I think he can fight near the front which will be good for him and the whole team.

Qualifying position

1 Tom Sykes 1'43.344 GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
2 Jonathan Rea 1'43.147 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
3 Chaz Davies 1'43.287 GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
4 Marco Melandri 1'43.173 ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
5 Loris Baz 1'43.290 FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
6 Sylvain Guintoli 1'43.277 FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
7 Eugene Laverty 1'43.277 IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
8 Davide Giugliano 1'43.441 ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
9 Leon Haslam 1'43.310 GBR HONDA Pata Honda
10 Sylvain Barrier 1'44.812 FRA BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
11 Alex Lowes 1'43.401 GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
12 David Salom 1'44.173 ESP KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
13 Ayrton Badovini 1'44.879 ITA BIMOTA Team Alstare
14 Niccolo Canepa 1'45.232 ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
15 Christian Iddon 1'44.711 GBR BIMOTA Team Alstare
16 Sheridan Morais 1'44.389 RSA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
17 Bryan Staring 1'45.119 AUS KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
18 Alessandro Andreozzi 1'44.941 ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
19 Claudio Corti 1'44.214 ITA MV AGUSTA MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
20 Toni Elias 1'44.870 SPA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
21 Riccardo Russo 1'45.298 ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
22 Jeremy Guarnoni 1'45.342 FRA KAWASAKI MRS Kawasaki
23 Fabien Foret 1'45.405 FRA KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India
24 Geoff May 1'46.971 USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
25 Gabor Rizmayer 1'48.250 HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
26 Aaron Yates 1'48.468 USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
27 Peter Sebestyen 1'48.734 HUN BMW BMW Team Toth

Championship standings

1 Tom Sykes 251 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
2 Sylvain Guintoli 212 pts FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
3 Loris Baz 210 pts FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
4 Jonathan Rea 199 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
5 Marco Melandri 179 pts ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team
6 Chaz Davies 143 pts GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
7 Davide Giugliano 111 pts ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team
8 Toni Elias 109 pts SPA APRILIA Red Devils Roma
9 Eugene Laverty 106 pts IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
10 Leon Haslam 99 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda
11 Alex Lowes 88 pts GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
12 David Salom 67 pts ESP KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team
13 Niccolo Canepa 43 pts ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
14 Leon Camier 30 pts GBR BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
15 Jeremy Guarnoni 19 pts FRA KAWASAKI MRS Kawasaki
16 Luca Scassa 16 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
17 Fabien Foret 14 pts FRA KAWASAKI MAHI Racing Team India
18 Claudio Corti 13 pts ITA MV AGUSTA MV Agusta RC-Yakhnich Motorsport
19 Sheridan Morais 10 pts RSA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
20 Alessandro Andreozzi 9 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
21 Sylvain Barrier 6 pts FRA BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
22 Glen Allerton 6 pts AUS BMW BMW Motorrad Italia SBK
23 Kervin Bos 5 pts NED HONDA Winteb LiquidRubber Racing T.
24 Bryan Staring 3 pts AUS KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
25 Riccardo Russo 2 pts ITA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
26 Michel Fabrizio 2 pts ITA KAWASAKI IRON BRAIN Kawasaki SBK Team
27 Imre Toth 2 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
28 Roamin Lanusse 1 pts FRA KAWASAKI Team Pedercini
29 Peter Sebestyen 0 pts HUN BMW BMW Team Toth
30 Geoff May 0 pts USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR
31 Christian Iddon 0 pts GBR BIMOTA Team Alstare
32 Aaron Yates 0 pts USA BIMOTA Team Hero EBR

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