Pata Honda rider Jonathan Rea took his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP to fourth and fifth place finishes in Sunday’s two 10th-round World Superbike championship races at Jerez in Spain, retaining his third place in the series with just two rounds to go.

Rea’s Pata Honda teammate Leon Haslam finished seventh and eighth in the two 20-lap outings which were run in cooler, more overcast conditions than the earlier practice and qualifying sessions at the 4.423km Jerez circuit.

Jonathan Rea: “I’m really happy with my race day because it was hard to have high expectations on Saturday, knowing we had to make a big change. But when we reverted to the previous spec engine and made some changes to the front of the bike I was able to ride the way I like without having to change my style too much. Starting from tenth on the grid really didn’t help me to use the tyre to its full potential and gain lap times at the beginning; but in the end my pace was really, really strong in both races. We can take a lot of positives but, to be honest, we were chasing our tails a little earlier in the weekend.”

Leon Haslam: “In race one I had a terrible start and struggled a bit. When we got to half race distance I think I went the wrong way with the buttons and made hard work for myself in the second half of the race. We made better steps in race two but I just couldn’t get past Loris [Baz]. I made a few mistakes but always caught him back within a lap. It was good to have a battle but it would have been nice to get by him and maybe get up to Eugene [Laverty]. But I was happy enough – we made good steps between the two races electronically. We knew this round would be tough but we’ve come away with two top eights and, even though I would prefer to fight with the next group, I enjoyed a battle so, all-in-all not too bad.”