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In the wake of the problems he encountered at Aragón and Brno, where he only scored 15 points, a fourth and a ninth place for Jonathan Rea (Honda World Superbike Team) at Silverstone can almost be considered a success. The Northern Irishman, who holds a British passport and can also safely be considered as a home favourite seeing as he spent a long time in BSB, had high expectations for Silverstone but for a variety of reasons he was unable to keep up his title challenge.

Tenth on the grid after two days of qualifying, Rea had a chance of fighting for the win in race 1 despite going off on lap 1. Right behind Badovini just before the flag, the recent Suzuka 8 Hours winner was unable to avoid the Italian's BMW when he high-sided out. Despite the crash Rea managed to cross over the line to finish fourth by a few thousandths of a second.

'Race one was just crazy but I enjoyed it because I knew it would be tough to race for a win, but we genuinely had a shot at it there! I got a bit wide at turn five on the first lap and the rear came round when I hit the kerb and I was dead last. But I never gave up and it was nice to be in the hunt for the win until the last corner, which gave me motivation for race two.'

Things were different in race 2 when Rea crashed on lap 9 but he was classified ninth when the race was stopped on lap 10. 'That was really strange starting on full wets when the track wasn't completely wet - it was difficult for everyone though. I was looking after my tyre at the beginning, which is why I was so far back, but when the monsoon came I started to push a little bit. My crash, like pretty much everybody else's out there happened on the rear tyre, which had no grip. There have been so many crashes in the wet like that this year - off the gas, at the apex - it's getting a bit frustrating. Overall, we took points out of the championship leaders, so it's not been a bad job today. To come away with a fourth and a ninth is better than I expected last night, so we'll take these results and move on.'