Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea is trying not to get too excited about tomorrow’s World Superbike Superpole sessions after coming away from qualifying practice in a positive mood.

The Northern Irishman set the second fastest time in this afternoon’s opening qualifying session at Imola in Italy, just one tenth of a second off provisional pole sitter fellow Brit, Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes.

Even some ‘electronics dramas’ in the first free practice session this morning was not enough to deter Rea from trying to improve his race pace, and he is now aiming for the first two rows for the main races on Sunday.

“It’s been a really positive day, even with some electronics dramas at the beginning of this morning’s session, which cost me some time. The laps we did today were all quality and I was working closely straight away with the electronics guys, getting a good base setting and gathering data,” said Rea.

“When I was comfortable, we put some runs together and it was just positive. We worked on trying to find grip at the end and so we spent the whole qualifying session on the same tyre, finding out what’s likely to happen in the latter stages of the race.

“Imola seems to have quite a different surface from other circuits and it’s good for tyre life and traction control interference, which is less here. Without getting too excited, I’m quite positive but we have to continue working tomorrow to fine-tune the bike. The pace is already quite fast, but we need to make sure we’re at least on the first two rows for Sunday.”