Rea up to second but taking things one step at a time
Jonathan Rea (Honda World Superbike Team) and his team have been making strong upward progress in the eni FIM Superbike World Championship standings recently. As low as seventh overall on two occasions this season, Rea's fight back has been occasionally meteoric (one win at Assen and another at Donington) but increasingly consistent due to a recent run of top five finishes all others with the exception of championship leader Max Biaggi have failed to match. Sixth overall after race one at Donington, Rea then scored victory number two then left his home track third. He went fourth after Miller's two races, but moved up to third after race one at the recent San Marino round, then pushed his way to second in race two.
For Rea, it's all been down to advances in the capability, repeatability of performance and wider window of tyre options his bike is providing to his technical crew. Rea said at Misano, "The bike was very good in race one and race two. In race one things were really good until the tyre went off. We did not do enough laps on the bigger profile rear tyre to use it for the race, so in race two we stayed with the 190 profile rear and used the soft option, the ‘A'. I am quite happy that in the hot conditions, in the summer, our bike can use an A tyre. I got stuck behind Tom to start in race two and also Davide Giugliano was being quite aggressive on circuit so I got a bit out of my rhythm, but stayed calm, regrouped and made a nice pass on Tom."
Rea said in the press conference at Misano after race two that he had had to ride almost a perfect race just to keep Haslam behind, so tight was their game of cat-and-mouse in the final laps of race two. "I had to ride a clean race because Leon Haslam was ‘+0' on my pit board all the time, so it was good to take a podium and finish second."
Rea's most obvious goal now, if he wants to be champion, is to win more races to peg back the ever-inflating points lead of Biaggi. For Rea, however, thoughts of the championship are far from his mind. "I do not look at the championship position right now; we are just trying to go round-by-round. My guys are working calmly in the pits so to come to a circuit where we struggled last year and do well means I am quite looking forward to Aragon, then to finish Aragon, to get married and then come back to the rest of the circuits where I am quite strong."
