Jonathan Rea enjoyed his most positive weekend of the 2024 World Superbike season last weekend at the Donington WorldSBK, as he got on the podium for the first time as a Yamaha rider.

Rea's speed was stronger than at almost any other round this year from the beginning of the weekend in FP1 for the WorldSBK UK Round, and a strong start in the Superpole Race put him in position to take that first podium in third place. Although Race 2 on Sunday proved that there is still work to be done for Rea and the Pata Yamaha team to make podium contention a regularity for the six-times champion, the Superpole Race showed that there is potential in the combination.

“The podium this morning was great," Rea said on Sunday in Donington. "If I look at the weekend as a whole, we faced some challenges but also I think we’ve caught a bit of a positive wave.

"My feeling with the Yamaha R1 is much better. In the Superpole Race, I got a great start – I was thinking to go down the inside but just released the brake and went around the outside, got some great track position and then I was able to make some really nice laps in the beginning to stay with Toprak [Razgatlioglu] and Nicolo [Bulega] for a bit and just settle into my rhythm.

"It was a nice feeling and a great little bonus for everybody in the team! We couldn’t capitalise as much with track position in Race 2 even though I started on the front row, I struggled from the get-go with rear traction. The bike was almost the same as the Superpole Race but the feeling was not the same which we will look into.

"I was sort of slip-sliding around with my teammate Loka (Andrea Locatelli), and I just gritted my teeth for as long as I could with Bautista and Petrucci coming through. Disappointing to finish the weekend at Donington like that with eighth in Race 2, but we can take a lot of positives to Most next week. Not long to wait to race again and it will be nice to carry the momentum with a good feeling with bike and the team from this morning and see what we can do there.”

Rea's teammate, Andrea Locatelli, as Rea eluded to, faired not much better in Race 2, finishing once place ahead in seventh place, matching his Superpole Race result. Donington has never been one of Locatelli's best circuits, with a best result of fourth coming only once, in last year's Race 1 - in comparison, his best result last weekend was the sixth place achieved in Race 1.

After the 2024 edition of the WorldSBK UK Round, Locatelli said: “Another difficult race for us, but we tried to get the maximum result and we always push hard. This was the maximum we could get today unfortunately.

"I would like to finish the race more in front, my feeling was to try to finish on the podium but we need to understand why it was not possible to make it today. We need just to continue to work hard, try to improve and keep looking forward.

"Fortunately, next week we have another race in Most at a different style of track. We have some days to rest and to understand what we need, and there we can try again. In the end, we didn’t do everything well this weekend but we got good points for the championship and we didn’t make any mistakes. So this is a good point and I am looking forward to making another step forward.”

Round six of the 2024 World Superbike Championship will take place on 19-21 July at the Autodrom Most in the Czech Republic.