A pre-race rain shower a few minutes before Race 1 for the Hyundai N Catalunya Round certainly ripped up the script at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya with Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) battling back to finish fourth after starting from the front row but falling down to tenth on the opening lap.

After Rea secured a front row start in Tissot Superpole, the rain came down just before Race 1 was due to start causing setup confusion up and down the grid. Rea fell down to tenth at the first timing point but soon battled his way back to the lead, overtaking Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK) on the opening lap. He remained there until Lap 12 when Razgatlioglu re-overtook him before he was also passed by Axel Bassani (Motocorsa Racing), Scott Redding (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) and Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) moving the six-time Champion down to fifth, although he later gained a place when Razgatlioglu retired from the race.

Discussing the issues the late rain shower caused ahead of the race, Rea said: “It was a long race for everybody in those conditions, especially when it’s thrown on you five minutes before the race starts! All weekend, we’d been practising in the dry and when the race came, it was a big compromise with setup. I’ve never ridden here in the wet so my mechanics, we sort of guessed the setup. It was a bit of a halfway house between wet and dry on the front and fully wet on the rear. I think that was the biggest mistake. Although the track was slippery, there wasn’t a lot of water to clear. I wasn’t getting enough energy into the tyre and when the rain stopped, I was just spinning. We have to learn from those situations. I rode my arse off to be there. I had so many small moments. It was a race where I had to keep maximum concentration and salvage what we could when things weren’t perfect.”

Can Rea return to winning ways on Sunday in Catalunya? Watch Sunday’s action using the WorldSBK VideoPass!