Pata Honda’ Jonathan Rea will start tomorrow’s two sixth-round World Superbike championship races from the front row of the grid after setting the third fastest time in this afternoon’s rain-affected Superpole sessions at Portimao, but the Northern Irishman found the delay in Superpole frustrating, with the constantly changing weather conditions.

Rea set the fastest time in Superpole two, just before the session was red-flagged due to rain. The final grid positions were, therefore, to be determined by a single 20-minute session, which turned out to be dry. With further rain threatening, Rea went out on his final qualifying tyre, matching his fastest ever lap around Portimao, but he could not quite match the pace of Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes, and Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty.

“Superpole was a bit strange, to be honest, because the weather was coming in, so in Superpole 2 we went out straight away with the Q. I went pretty quick in dodgy conditions and I was taking a bit of a risk, but they red flagged the session just as I finished my lap. So I was really frustrated because I thought that was us locked in and we’d got our place on the grid,” said Rea.

“But then they went to the wet Superpole format which was 20 minutes, and we used the Q too early. I did my best again on the other Q and went pretty quick , a  41'7, and the clouds were coming in again, but then it brightened up so the other guys tended to get the best of the track.

“I was happy enough to be on the front row, really, because we made a real backwards step in free practice two, but we rectified it for Superpole. I’m looking forward to the races tomorrow and I think we can make another step in warm-up with the chassis. The bumps around here are just a little bit off-putting, especially through the fast bomb-hole section, so we’ll just tidy the bike up a little bit. I’ve got to find some speed in sector one as well but, other than that, we’re good to race."