Jonathan Rea took a commanding win on his Pata Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP in the second of yesterday’s two third-round World Superbike races at Assen in the Netherlands. It was his fifth win at the 4.542km circuit, his 12th career SBK victory, and a superb follow-up to his third place finish in race one this morning.
Rea’s podium finishes in Sunday’s races extend his record of scoring at least one rostrum finish each season at Assen since 2010, giving him a total of eight in ten races over five years.
Thefirst outing was dry, despite forecast rain, and British rider Rea, 27, settled into a rhythm, but did not have quite enough pace to match eventual winner, Sylvain Guintoli, with Tom Sykes finishing second. The race ended five laps early when oil was dropped on the circuit, Rea’s Pata Honda team-mate Leon Haslam, 30, taking eighth place at the flag.
The rain eventually arrived for race two but not before the race was declared ‘dry’ and started under threatening skies. The first attempt was delayed after the end of the warm-up lap when the rain finally fell in earnest. While some riders lined up on the grid, others, including Haslam, entered the pits to switch from slick tyres to full wets.
The second attempt to start the race was stopped after just three laps when the rain became torrential and red flags were waved. A long wait followed for track conditions to improve, with a shortened 10-lap race finally starting two hours behind schedule.
Rea took the lead on the opening lap and kept his rivals at arm's length, eventually crossing the line two seconds ahead of fellow British rider Alex Lowes, with Davide Guigliano finishing third.
Jonathan Rea - third, first
It’s been a really good weekend because we’ve been on the podium twice. To be honest, our dry pace was OK in race one but Sylvain [Guintoli] made such a fast start to the race, I struggled to go with him. When Tom [Sykes] went past I made a big mistake but, after that, my pace until the end was quite similar to theirs. For race two we were quite excited to see if we could go with them in the dry but during the break it rained quite heavily. After some delays, we got going for a 10-lap race and to win that was really special. It’s a wet race win around Assen but I kept having flash-backs to Magny-Cours in 2012 when I had a 10-second lead and crashed. For the last laps I just tried to be as smart as I could, and they were long laps, because I had a bit of a gap. I just want to thank all the team. This win’s for all those guys who have worked tirelessly throughout the winter and since the start of the season to make the CBR as strong as possible. It’s great to be able to give them back some good vibes to roll with into the next part of the season.
Leon Haslam - eighth, fifth
Race one was a bit frustrating really because I felt we could have been easily fifth from where we were. The pace wasn’t that mega but we had a lot of issues again this weekend. It wasn’t right in race one but I think fifth was still possible. The flag put an early end to it anyway. I was confident that, for the dry, we’d made the right move for race two but it was wet. In the first part I was already up to fifth when they stopped it but, in part two, I got caught behind Chaz [Davies] and it took me a few laps to get by him. When I passed him, everyone had gone, but I was able to be one of the fastest guys on track in the last three laps. I managed to get past Baz and Melandri and was closing the gap to Tom [Sykes] but then ran out of time. We hadn’t really done any wet testing, so it was positive that we weren’t too far away. The pace was pretty good but starting from where we were on the grid didn’t help either.
Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator
Race one was dry and we were, of course, very happy with Jonathan’s podium, although Leon had one or two other issues. In the wet conditions, and after flags, and delays, we finally went for 10 laps. Jonathan went to the front, built a gap and kept control. It was a really smart, clever race so I’m very happy for him and the whole team. Leon got held up a bit but once he got going he was doing similar lap times to Jonathan. It was a difficult weekend so it’s good to finish this way and we can go to Imola with more confidence.
Race 1 Results - Results1 Sylvain Guintoli 25m56.636s FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team2 Tom Sykes +1.259s GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team3 Jonathan Rea +4.116s GBR HONDA Pata Honda4 Loris Baz +4.459s FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team5 Toni Elias +23.728s ESP APRILIA Red Devils Roma6 Marco Melandri +25.478s ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team7 Chaz Davies +26.533s GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team8 Leon Haslam +26.696s GBR HONDA Pata Honda9 Alex Lowes +27.971s GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki10 Niccolo Canepa +33.479s ITA DUCATI Althea RacingRace 2 Results - Results1 Jonathan Rea 19m09.464s GBR HONDA Pata Honda2 Alex Lowes +2.222s GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki3 Davide Guigliano +4.955s ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team4 Tom Sykes +13.089s GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team5 Leon Haslam +13.639s GBR HONDA Pata Honda6 Marco Melandri +18.041s ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team7 Loris Baz +21.837s FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team8 Chaz Davies +26.919s GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team9 Sylvain Guintoli +32.766s FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team10 Niccolo Canepa +37.965s ITA DUCATI Althea Racing
Championship Standings - Round 31 Tom Sykes 208 pts GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team2 Sylvain Guintoli 96 pts FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team4 Jonathan Rea 89 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda5 Marco Melandri 69 pts ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team6 Davide Guigliano 59 pts ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team7 Chaz Davies 47 pts GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team8 Eugene Laverty 46 pts IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki9 Leon Haslam 44 pts GBR HONDA Pata Honda10 Alex Lowes 36 pts GBR SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki
