Ten Kate's Honda's Jonathan Rea has got his Qatar World Superbike weekend off to an impressive start, nabbing second place on the provisional front two, just three-tenths of second behind poleman Ben Spies.

The young Irishman is expecting the pace to hot up tomorrow though but Rea feels his Honda Fireblade setup is working better in the desert heat than it did at Phillip Island.

"That was a good start to the weekend. I’ve been really looking forward to coming here and feel that our package works better here. The CBR1000RR felt really good today and we managed good consistency of lap times when we did a little run," said Rea.

"The crew has worked really hard and we’ve got some new parts working really well. It’ll be fun to see how the pace hots up tomorrow, because I think there’s some more to come."
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