Ten Kate Honda's Jonathan Rea thinks his Dutch-based World Superbike team is heading in the right direction after he managed to pick up seventh and fifth places in the two races at Assen.

The young Irishman did around 500km of testing at a short oval near the team's base before the race, concentrating on problems he had with the Honda's throttle, and it appeared to have paid off.

"The results are better than in Valencia and, to be honest, they had to be. It’s no secret that we’ve had some problems, but we’ve done a lot of thinking in the last three weeks and I really want to thank everyone in the team who dug deep to find some solutions," said Rea.

"We came here with a good setting and had a couple of unrelated issues in qualifying, which led to a difficult starting position, but the bike is really going in a direction now that I’m happy with. I got a really bad start in race one, which was followed by a bit of arm pump.

"That was much better in race two and I really started to enjoy riding the bike again. Unfortunately, by the time I got some clear track in front of me, the leading four had gone. But I’m really pumped for Monza – I feel like I’ve got a really good working relationship with the team now and we’re definitely going in the right direction."