It was an eventful day in the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship, with Toprak Razgatlioglu flying the flag high for BMW after storming to pole position and securing an impressive Race 1 victory. However, the top Yamaha at the end of the day’s proceedings was Jonathan Rea (Pata Prometeon Yamaha) – securing a fifth-place finish at the line.

The #65 ended the Tissot Superpole session in eighth position, earning a spot on the third row of the grid – behind teammate Andrea Locatelli (Pata Prometeon Yamaha). In Race 1 it was a strong result for Rea, claiming fifth at the line after carving through the field on Saturday.

Discussing the story of his weekend so far, Rea said: “My pace was better than I expected and you know we had a bad Free Practice 1 as we had a technical issue. But in Free Practice 2 my pace was okay and you always think that you need to improve but you forget the race pace is going to be about there and that everybody can only go so fast.

“To be honest, we didn’t change the bike drastically, we worked on some points this weekend, especially with the electronics to fine-tune it. Top five and a bonus was top Yamaha which is not something which we really think about as ‘Loka’ was right there but it is nice.”

Rea was strong through Sectors 2 and 3 during Race 1 and crossed the line to finish 1.436s behind Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati). Finishing fifth leaves Rea 12^th in the 2024 World Championship standings, just two points behind Axel Bassani (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK).

However, the six-time WorldSBK Champion believes that there is still work to do before he feels fully comfortable on his Yamaha: “It is hard to describe but still I feel like the bike is quite aggressive, as from an electronic point of view I need to be in harmony with what is going on and it seems like sometimes I am fighting against the traction control, wheelie control or engine braking. That is probably the biggest area for improvement and it is all confidence as you know when you can trust that the electronics are working in synchrony with you it is almost telepathic that is when you can start to make some magic.”

Looking ahead to Sunday, Rea is focused on the start of the Superpole Race which he believes will play a crucial part in the remainder of his weekend: “The Superpole Race all depends on the start and tomorrow, I need to pray to the heavens that I get off the line good as that will make or break my day as that grid position carries over to Race 2 so it is an important one. The race tyre has not been quite decided as I haven’t done much mileage with the SCX tyre this weekend which we feel will be the race tyre.”

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