The MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship descended on Donington Park for Jonathan Rea’s (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) home round as the six-time Champion looked for his first win of the season. The Northern Irishman was able to collect two podium finishes during the Prosecco DOC UK Round but was left ruing what might have been after coming within touching distance of a win in Sunday’s Tissot Superpole Race.

Rea secured his 250^th podium in Race 1 as he claimed third place and he repeated that result in Sunday’s 10-lap battle although he narrowly missed out on victory by just half a second. 118-time race winner Rea had led for the first eight laps but found himself demoted to second on Lap 9 when Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK) fought his way through, followed by Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) at the Foggy Esses on the final lap.

Discussing Bautista’s move and the Superpole Race, Rea said: “He parked it on the apex, which was a little bit naughty, I had nowhere to go. It was either release the brakes and go through the gravel or completely compromise any sort of counterattack. It’s an old hand move. Toprak did the same to me last year. One of those and I just got beaten. It was a tough one to swallow because I did so much in that race; leading for eight laps. To be done on the penultimate lap by Toprak and then by Alvaro when I was trying to set up a move on Toprak was a little bit frustrating.”

The Superpole Race results meant Rea was going in search of three podiums in a single round for the first time in 2023. He was in the top three for the majority of the encounter but dropped down to fifth in the closing stages. Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Team) came by on Lap 18 before Scott Redding (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) followed him through a lap later.

Reflecting on Race 2, Rea added: “It was frustrating to lose the fight for the podium at the end. From the mid-part of the race, I ran out of rear traction. I was spinning a lot and the bike was moving. With Scott, I thought maybe I could fight in the last corners, but he put together a pretty good penultimate and last sector. It’s hard when the results are flipped; if I’d finished off the way I started in the Superpole Race; I’d have been super happy. It so goes that the start of my day was great and it didn’t end so well with a P5, but we learnt a little bit more about our bike. When the grip levels came up and more rubber went down on the track, we struggled. The good thing with testing is we’ve sort of ticked the box of helping the front of the bike. Now we need to manage the rear tyre a little bit better at the end of races.”

Next stop, Imola: watch all the action from Round 7 using the WorldSBK VideoPass!