Castrol Honda's Jonathan Rea surprised himself during World Superbike Superpole today, breaking Cal Crutchlow's circuit best lap with a circulation that he didn't believe was going to be all that fast.

The Irishman set the last session alight with his lap just after Yamaha's Eugene Laverty had put in a blistering time to go under the existing 1'37.699 by a tenth. Rea then went out, put the hammer down and bagged a welcome pole.

"It was a strong lap but we’ve had a good base for most of the weekend and we knew we had to make an extra step to make Sunday more comfortable. The guys gave me a great bike in free practice this afternoon and transformed some things with the balance of the bike, which gave me more confidence to push," he said.

"So I kind of expected to be somewhere near the front but I didn’t expect the lap time to be that fast. We had a good Superpole 1 and that freed us up with the qualifiers for Superpole 2 and 3, so everything worked out perfectly. The big step we made in free practice means I can be quite consistent on my preferred race tyre, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow now. The team did a great job today, so I’d like to thank everyone. "