​Kawasaki rider Jonathan Rea was pleased with his efforts at Misano on Friday as he seeks to return to winning ways this weekend.

Despite not making it into the top three in either World Superbike practice session, Rea was able to find good, consistent pace over the two sessions and he feels confident ahead of racing.

“Yeah it was good,” he told Bikesport News. “It was a really steady start, as we came with a bike that we had been using the last few races and a good balance found at Donington.

“We confirmed that at Jerez, but here it seems like the overall package worked. For FP2 we changed some things, altered the spring balance to suit the track and it worked quite well.”

He has big aims this weekend too, with a double victory on his mind even at this early stage of proceedings.

“To win both races. That’s my target,” declared Rea. “No, honestly because we have to be realistic, there’s some race weekends we can’t win but I feel like here, especially with our pace last year and even now today seems like our pace is ok. 

“Position’s not amazing but the top eight guys are really close so the target is to win because it’s not about trying to build some ideal lead in my brain or something, but it’s been a while since I have won now. 

“I may have been close but it feels like I need it for my confidence a little bit and for the momentum for the second half of the year as well because this race and then Laguna in two weeks time is important for my mentality to go into the summer break strong.

“I want to be able to attack the last four rounds with a little bit less stress than perhaps it would be if I was 56 points behind or very close and getting nervous. 

“In this sport anything can happen. We’re human so I can make mistakes or like we had last year with where we unfortunately had one problem in the final race of the year. 

“Hopefully that doesn’t happen but we have to consider these things so who knows? Maybe I’ll have to adapt to another strategy at the end and fight it out.”

Rea also found the track slightly strange compared to last year, when Misano had just been resurfaced and he felt last year’s grip played to his strengths.

While that wasn’t the case today, the Ulsterman is still confident that once he and the Kawasaki team find an answer to that they’ll be right up there.

“Now because whether it’s we had bad weather last week and a lot of the rubber’s been washed away or because the track is just a little bit greener, it just seems the grip isn’t consistent as it was last year but we’re just figuring that out really,” he said.