Ten Kate Honda's Jonathan Rea has said there could be some fireworks in the opening laps of tomorrow's two Qatar World Superbike races as he attempts to make his way from 17th on the grid.

Rea had been a front-runner in all the sessions leading up to Superpole but the decision to run a soft race tyre in the opening bout saw him fail to make the cut.

I’ve been running near the top for the last two days, so I used a soft race tyre in the first Superpole session – one that I’d done a fast time on in the free practice just before. Unfortunately, it didn’t work and although we thought we’d be safe, as it turned out, we weren’t." said the Irishman.

"It’s going to be very hard from the fifth row tomorrow, but I’m really confident in the package the we’ve got and in my ability to do the lap times. Whereas I was a bit nervous on the front row in Australia, I’m quite pumped for tomorrow and I’ll do my best to make it happen. There might be some fireworks on the first couple of laps, so stay tuned."