Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea took fourth place in the first of today’s two fifth-round World Superbike championship races at Donington Park, but there was not much else for his Pata Honda team to celebrate this weekend, as the rider could only contend with eleventh in race two. An electronics sensor failure just before the final race restricted him to a place outside the top ten.
The rider even struggled in race one to keep up with the pace of Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes, Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli, and GoldBet BMW’s Marco Melandri.
"I was pretty happy with my pace at the start of race one but, as soon as my tyre started to go, and the electronics were cutting too severely and I lost a lot of pace. I even struggled to compete with Laverty and Guintoli as they came past," said Rea.
"Race two was a complete disaster. Already, on the sighting lap, I told the guys that we had a sensor problem on the traction control. They said there wasn’t enough time to fix it so I went out on a bike that I was really unsure of. In reality it was cutting way, way too much power and I even tried to turn the traction control off, but it wouldn’t turn completely off. It was the worst 23 laps I’ve ever ridden."
Neither race featured Rea’s Pata Honda team-mate Leon Haslam, who was withdrawn following morning warm-up after consultation with the team's management and medical staff. Rea had shown potential during yesterday’s practice session, qualifying in fourth place on the grid, which is where he finished race one, but the rider has been left feeling angry after the work his team have put into the bike.
“I’m really frustrated after all the work we’ve done. We struggled for dry time at the start of the weekend but made some inroads during warm-up this morning and I felt good in race one. I feel like we should have been on the podium twice today.”