Castrol Honda's Jonathan Rea was once again robbed of a podium by a faulty electrical part - this time a cheap crank ignition sensor - which forced his bike to stop working and saw the Irishman retire from third in today's second Magny-Cours World Superbike race.
Last time out at Imola, a £1 battery connector forced Rea out of the second-race lead so the gods of Maplin are not looking favourably on the Ballyclare man. Rea crashed out of race one after buggering up the start and then pushing hard to get through the pack.
"This is not exactly what we expected after a strong performance in Imola and we were hoping to make up for the disappointment of that second race retirement. We kind of got halfway there with the pole position yesterday, but raceday was a completely different chapter," said Rea.
"In race one, you know, I can put my hand up and say I got completely out of rhythm after I thought I’d jumped the start. Actually, when we checked the wheel speeds, it turned out that it wasn’t a jump start – it was just a short movement, but I got swamped in the pack. I was out of my rhythm then and ended up making a stupid mistake over a kerb.
"I was leading race two for a good bit and enjoying myself. Eugene [Laverty] went past and made a bit of a break but I re-grouped and then realised that Carlos [Checa] was coming. I thought I’d follow Carlos back up to Eugene and he’d pull us clear, but we had another silly little electrical malfunction.
"Of course it’s disappointing for both myself and the team to have two DNFs here but now we’re going to Portimao, which is a track that I really enjoy and we’ve had some success there. We won’t feel sorry for ourselves because we know we’ve got the pace to run at the front, no matter what the conditions, so we’ll got to Portugal and I’ll do my best as usual."
