Pata Honda's Jonathan Rea was fastest on the opening day of the fourth-round World Superbike championship meeting at Imola in Italy today, with the second free practice session this afternoon cut short by 12 minutes. But even though he topped the timesheets the Isle of Man resident is still hoping to go quicker tomorrow.

A broken drainage cover at turn four at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari caused a red flag and with track workers unable to repair it, the day’s activities were abandoned. Even with the flags and interruptions Rea enjoyed being back at the Italian track and is content with his pace so far, but still thinks more can be done to the bike to go even faster.

“I really enjoyed being back at Imola today. The bike is clearly working quite well here but we still need to make some good improvements, especially getting the power down off the slower corners and final turning with engine brake. But for our first day we’ve got to be happy because our pace is OK,” said Rea.

"The ultimate lap time I didn’t think was very fast compared to the race or the test here last year. But the track is quite fresh and there’s not a lot of rubber down – there haven’t been any big meetings here before us.

“Tomorrow when the track gets a bit more rubbered-in I think you’ll see the pace starting to hot up a little bit. We’ll work hard tonight to refine the bike even more and hopefully go with that pace."

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