Rea continues on WSBK rampage

Kawasaki's Jonathan Rea claimed the Portimao world superbike double on June 7, bringing his 2015 haul to an impressive 10 wins from 14 races.

The maximum haul of 50pts has taken him to 330 at the halfway mark in the season—seven rounds—ahead of teammate Tom Sykes (206) and Aprilia's Leon Haslam (199).

“My crew chief Pere and I sit down and work out a good set-up, evaluating our tyres," said Rea, "We learned from some mistakes in Donington that made us stronger here and I am riding well, but I have the tools to do it.
"So it is massive credit to all my mechanics for working so hard and KHI in Japan, who are continuing to develop. We know now where the limit is and we rode two good races today. The points' gap is a lot after this round but I will try not change the way I am riding.”

Race one saw the first flag-to-flag contest of 2015 as Rea took his ninth victory of the season, coming home 9.384sec ahead of Sykes and Chaz Davies (Ducati). For the first 14 laps the Kawasaki pair was playing a game of cat and mouse until with six laps to go the rain began to fall. All but Sykes came in to change to wet tyres with Sykes following suit the following lap. The duo fought it out until Sykes made a mistake allowing Rea to notch up his 2th career win.

Polesitter Davide Giugliano (Ducati) was fourth, with Sylvain Guintoli (Honda) and Matteo Baiocco (Ducati) fifth and sixth respectively.

The conditions for race two were almost perfect as Rea won by 5.416sec, moving him into third overall in terms of most consecutive podium finishes (15).

As in the first encounter, Sykes initially led before being passed by Rea and Giugliano, the trio pulling clear of the pack as their pace at the front increased. As the race continued Rea began to stretch a lead, leaving Sykes and Giugliano to fight for second until Sykes; ZX-10R suffered what looked like a technical problem. The former champion would eventually finish eighth.

Haslam took full advantage of the situation to take third from Davies, Michael van der Mark (Honda) and Guintoli.

In world supersport, Jules Cluzel (MV Agusta) won after withstanding incredible pressure from championship leader Kenan Sofuoglu (Kawasaki). It was Cluzel's second win of the season. American PJ Jacobsen backed up his strong debut qualifying performance with his new team (CORE’’ Motorsport Thailand Honda) to take the final place on the podium, while Australia's Glenn Scott (Honda) was 13th.

In Superstock 1000, Perth’s Bryan Staring (Kawasaki) finished sixth, and Brisbane’s Aiden Wagner finished 14th on his first outing on the Suzuki. Wagner lost his world supersport ride with his Czech-based team last week when the team transporter and all rider belongings were seized by authorities.

The next round of the championship takes place at Misano in a fortnight.