Jonathan Rea admits he was powerless to stop Chaz Davies taking two World Superbike race wins at Magny-Cours.
The championship leader finished second today as the Aruba Ducati rider took his second win of the weekend ahead of Rea and his Kawasaki Racing team-mate Tom Sykes who was third.
“Second was the best we could do today,” he said. “I’ll always ask myself the question if I’d got through on Tom a little bit earlier could I have put my head down and made the rhythm. Unfortunately the first attempt I made at a pass, it left the door wide open for Chaz and then I had to re-work to pass Tom because we ran a little bit wide.
“Our opposition now in the championship is Tom, so to beat him here and come out with a small extend in the championship was our target when we arrived.”
While he admits he was in no position to mount a serious challenge to Davies, he is taking some heart from the fact he rode hard and that, importantly, he now has a comfortable lead in the series, so much so that he can almost see the crown.
“I’m happy with the way I was riding. Of course we can change some things on the bike now we’ve done 21 laps in the dry and understand everything a little bit better but I gave 100 per cent, honestly I feel bit tired after that race because the gap at the beginning was quite big and I spent a lot of energy to pass Chaz and then catch Tom because he had such a strong rhythm at the beginning.
“Overall I’m satisfied - it’s nice to move on to Jerez now with the championship lead – it’s not realistic and it's not all done but there’s the first chance we can win the championship at Jerez so it’s exciting to move on to there.”