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Before focusing entirely on the fifth round of the 2014 eni FIM Superbike World Championship at Donington Park, WorldSBK.com takes a look at some interesting facts and figures that emerged from the previous event of the season at Imola.

Perfect weekend for Rea

First pole in Imola for Jonathan Rea, the fourth in his career, the same of two-time world champions Fred Merkel ('88-'89) and James Toseland ('04-'07). Rea hadn't start from pole since the 2011 Algarve races. For Honda, which was enduring the same streak as Rea's, it's their 45th pole (record: Ducati, 163).

Rea dominated the weekend with pole, double win and double fastest race lap: an occurrence recorded only 23 times in Superbike history (the last one before him had been by Tom Sykes in last year's Magny Cours races).

For Rea it's the second career double win after Assen, 2010, and it's the first time he was able to nail three consecutive wins after his win in race two in Assen;

For the first time in his career, Jonathan is leading the championship.

Thirteen career wins: he reached Marco Melandri and Eugene Laverty at the eighteenth all-time spot. Among the active riders, only the current World Champion, Tom Sykes, won more (16).

Rea is the first rider since 1998 (first year with lap chart data) to lead three consecutive races from lights to flag.

Honda didn't record three Consecutive wins since 2005 (Chris Vermeulen: a double in Assen and Lausitzring race one).

Races

The last six races didn't record lead changes, a first for the Superbike World Championship. These were the leaders: Tom Sykes (both races in Motorland), Sylvain Guintoli (Assen 1) and Jonathan Rea (Assen 2 and both races in Imola).

Chaz Davies was back on the podium after the first race in Laguna Seca last year, and scored his first double podium since Nurburgring last year, when he was third and won. For Ducati, the second places by Chaz are their best result since their last win by Sylvain Guintoli in Magny Cours, 2012. This is also the first race since then with a double podium for Ducati. Chaz in his career was able to climb on the podium with three different manufacturers: Aprilia in 2012, BMW last year and now Ducati.

In race one Tom Sykes recorded the 180th race on the podium for Kawasaki (record: Ducati 492).

First championship point for Alessandro Andreozzi, who was fifteenth in race one.

Marco Melandri's podium drought reaches four races: the worst since 2012, when he recorded a string of six, from the second race in Phillip Island to Monza. Also at the time in the sequence there were Imola and Assen, the only tracks of the current calendar in which he never climbed on the podium. At the time Marco put an end to the streak winning in Donington, the upcoming race in a fortnight’s time.

In race one the podium was locked out by British riders: it didn't happen since the 2010 Silverstone races (Crutchlow, Rea and Haslam in race one and Crutchlow, Rea and Camier in race two). In the history of the Championship, the podium was locked out by a single country sixteen times, eight of which by Great Britain.

Qualifying

Rea's pole was the 76th for a British rider, only ten shy of the most successful Country, Australia (86, half of them, 43, by Troy Corser).

Chaz Davies, fourth, scored his best grid spot since last year's Monza races, when he started second.

Marco Melandri obtained his best grid spot in Imola, fifth (improving from sixth, scored two years ago).

For Tom Sykes this was his second-worst grid spot here (6th). He started from a lower spot only in 2009, when he was sixteenth in grid (he had fallen heavily on friday). For the first time since he joined Kawasaki, he missed out on a front row grid spot in Imola.