Honda's Jonathan Rea was lucky to escape relatively unscathed from a massive highside in the final part of World Superbike Superpole at Imola today after getting on the throttle fractionally too hard exiting the fast Villeneuve right-hander in what will be a contender in the 'came down with snow on' category when awards aren't given out at season end.

Rea still managed to secure sixth place despite the spill, which came just after he changed back to a race tyre, but isn't sure how he will fare come raceday as his competitors haven't been giving their race strategies away...

"It’s been a bit frustrating today because it seems that we’ve improved the pace from last year, but the pace to win the race is now much faster. Pirelli have brought a new tyre which is bringing some more time, but, for me, I’m a little surprised that we’re not as competitive as we’d hoped. For Superpole we made quite a good change to the bike but I got caught out with a crash at the end when I put a race tyre back in the bike," said Rea.

"I had quite a good split and, yeah, just used a few per cent more gas out of turn five and had a big highside, so I think I’m quite lucky to escape without injury. The bike’s working OK, but it’s quite hard to know what the race pace is going to be tomorrow because quite a few riders have been working on different strategies with tyres. Second row is not so bad, though – I’ll just try to get a good start and go with the front guys tomorrow."