Jonathan Rea took an important second place in the opening WorldSBK feature race, especially as big championship rival Scott Redding fell trying to scare up more championship points. It was ten points ahead for Rea into Teruel, 30 points up on Redding last night.

Rea was asked if it must be frustrating for another rider to race against his consistently high pace, and had a word of caution - and a recent memory – to show that everybody can be fallible.

“I have a lot of experience but I also made a big mistake myself in race one at Phillip Island, and lost a lot of points. So now everybody in the front has had their zero point score. Some days you have good days but this year I have had more bad days than my average over the last five years,” Rea told bikesportnews.com.

“To finish seventh in Jerez was a complete disaster for us. You just need to score points. When the pace is so high like today or last weekend, it is easy to cross the limit, so it is important to keep that in mind. Especially in the heat, when the grip level drops and the tyres are moving around.”

Rea says he will continue to try to win, from now on and also accepting that the gap to the first time winner Rinaldi was big, too big. He is also aware that thus far things are probably going better at Motorland than he might have imagined, especially at a track with a vast straight and a huge pedigree of Ducati race wins.

“To come here and interrupt the Ducatis already last weekend, and to be in front of the factory bikes today, we can consider it a really good job,” said Rea.

He has not ruled out using the X rear tyre in the longer race on Sunday but other bike changes have been notable by their absence on a bike he and his team know intimately.

“We have changed nothing since we have arrived,” said Rea. “I tried a different fork spring in FP2 last weekend but after that we have changed nothing. Sometimes when you spend so much time testing and racing with different temperatures you can just get lost and we have to accept our package as it is.

My team asked me to change some things especially in the hotter conditions when it comes to braking. I feel I made a much better race last week because I made zero mistakes in race two last weekend – I won the race – but I was making more mistakes.”

Given that Rea had stretched out a 30 point lead, and set a new track best in Superpole, he actually disagreed when asked if this must have been one of his better days of racing. “No, the best day was last Sunday. Incredible. But to do the circuit record in Superpole was good, the lap was fast.

“I focused a lot on the lap, visualised it to get good track position. The expectation was, like last week, that Chaz would be very strong. I knew if I could put myself on pole, no matter where he would be I could dictate the pace more. Michael did a really good job.”

Rea had to think about whether Rinaldi, and his immaculate front running and finally cool headed win, makes him a potential new kid on the regular winner’s block, or if this race may have been a golden moment for him.

“It is hard to say, but you have to give him his moment, it was an incredible race today. Congratulations to him. It looks like the bike was strong, all three Ducatis in the front all year. When you have good riders like Chaz and Scott to share data, you have to be not so clever to understand how to do it.

He is obviously clever and using everything that is available to him. It is a great result for him to beat the factory bikes. He has been in Superbike a few years now and this is his first win. It is not like when Toprak arrived and suddenly one season he is there, fighting. A nice day for Michael and if he is another guy in the front, that’s cool.”