Despite this only being WorldSBK round two, and despite only one race having been run in Estoril, Scott Redding made significant championship ground up on Jonathan Rea by winning on Saturday.

Rea did not, as is joked about often, manage to finish second if he couldn’t win, but third was still a hard shift at the WorldSBK coalface with Toprak Razgatlioglu second and Redding the winner.

The day before Rea was looking like a rider who could not quite get to the winning positions, but he was less than a second off Redding, and the Superpole winner earlier in the day, at new record pace - 1’35.876.

“To be honest, I thought the race would be a little bit different yesterday,” Rea told bikesportnews.com. “This morning we made the bike much better. Superpole helped to have track position in the first lap, but it was such a long start straight I was just a gauge for everybody else making the holeshot to brake.

“A few laps in, I made a mistake and Rinaldi came past. When he came past, I just lost the grip a little bit and had to work so hard to catch back up. I was getting there. I felt my rhythm was quite the same as them guys at the end. Just not really sure where I can pass, to be fair. I can pass Toprak with a really good slip stream and come alongside, but I’m not brave enough to pass him on the brakes. I would end up in Lisbon, to be honest. Happy to be on the podium.

‘I was terrible here last year, really terrible. I never found a rhythm with the track. This morning I felt like I got a good rhythm and continued that today. It was quite clear to see where I was losing. So, very hard to rectify that right now, but step by step we’re improving.’

At Turn four Rea was using a significantly different line from the rest, and he knew it. And he knew he had to.

“I don’t know what gear them guys are using, but I’m so in-between gears. I prefer to use second gear there. No engine brake. It’s like running wide and I don’t want to stress the front too much. We know that’s the weakest area of our bike is turning. But first gear just feels too aggressive in there, also in the exit. I didn’t feel like my wide line was losing too much. Just the punch out of the corner I could see Scott was much better and he would carry that all the way down to the next straight.”

Rea was delighted with third, which sounds weird for a rider with 101 race wins to his credit already. “I am so happy with day one. Of course I would have preferred a few more points, but I’d rather be realistic and realise that we’ve made a huge improvement. Try to make another step tomorrow. Both them guys used the SCX tyre. I back-to-backed SCX and SC0 in very similar conditions at private a test in Aragon. I was the same or faster with the SCX, but the feeling I had with it wasn’t as good.

The positive thing with our bike is I can be fast with the 0, and if these guys don’t have the same rhythm with the 0 so they’re forced to use the X to be fast. Tomorrow the Superpole race of course will be SCX, then I’ll see how that feels after ten laps whether we use it for the longer race or not. Right now I don’t know what would have been the right tyre choice for me or not.”

With Redding and Razgatlioglu looking happier and easier on their tyres than Rea, even if Rea could close in on them after some early skirmishes with Michael Ruben Rinaldi and his Ducati because he had chosen an SC0, in part at least, Rea was maybe not on the best rubber after all, and in a slight bit of trouble.

“A little bit,” he said, “I was trying to go with them and making some mistakes, especially the exit of the last corner. It took some laps to get the tyre in a good way, a lot of heat in the tyre to make it move. In the beginning it was just too hard and spinning and I was losing traction. I didn’t feel so comfortable, but as soon as the gap stayed stable for a few laps, then I caught them.

‘I thought, I’m not pushing. Don’t try more. Just do the same and don’t make mistakes. But it’s hard not to make mistakes when there’s this long, long straight and you’re getting carried in the slip stream. Then you arrive at turn one and you’re like, I can’t stop, don’t want to crash! Then you just sort of miss the corner by a couple metres.”

When asked how he could be so happy with third, after two solid wins isn Aragon and a second place, Rea said, “Yeah. I was shit here last year, really bad. I struggled. If you looked at the time sheets yesterday to see where we came from, I think we really improved the most on the weekend. Third is not great if I get smoked, but I was right there to the last corner. I was setting Toprak up to try and pass on the straight, but of course we don’t have enough power for that right now. I don’t know the gap to Scott, but he was right there in front. So, third is not the best for points but I was right in the race. So I can be happy.”

Rea also knows that he is also riding against proven race victors all the time, which makes winning when he does pretty special.

“It’s a world championship,” he said, simply. “These guys are good. Toprak, and Scott is good too. They’re some of the most talented guys in the world. I can’t win all the time. I feel it’s a credit when I do win. If I get beat, I get beat and try and learn from it. We know it’s not the best track for us, all this tight, lots of turning. I don’t like the track, but today I was able to be there or thereabout, so I’m quite happy.

‘I do really feel like we can make a step tomorrow because for example, Aragon, I felt like I could go and win the race no problem. Here, I was going to have to fight. I expected Toprak to beat Scott, to be fair. So, fair play to Scott. I knew today I could fight but I wasn’t confident I could beat them guys. Tomorrow is a different story.”