Rea seals Assen double

Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki) has won both world superbike races in round four at Assen on April 16-17, and now leads the championship by 45pts (181 to 136) over Ducati's Chaz Davies. Tom Sykes (Kawasaki) is third on 122pts.

Rea did the business in the dry race one ahead of Davies and American Nicky Hayden (Honda) — the former MotoGP champion's first in the WorldSBK — ranks as riders like polesitter Sykes, Sylvain Guintoli (Yamaha) and hometown hero Michael van der Mark (Honda) crashed out. Leon Camier (MV Agusta) and Jordi Torres (BMW) were fourth and fifth.

Race two started on a mostly wet track, the remnants of a downpour in the preceding world supersport encounter, and saw a number of leaders -- one of them Aussie Josh Brookes (BMW) — and pit stops as the majority of riders swapped from wet to intermediate tyres.

Rea and Sykes eventually found themselves in a clear 1-2, with van der Mark finishing in third from Lorenzo Savadori (Aprilia) and Davies.

Meanwhile, Brookes crashed out, while his countryman Josh Hook (Kawasaki) didn't start after running into technical problems. A day earlier, Brookes was 11th in the opener and Hook 16th.

In the restarted world supersport race after the big Assen deluge, Kyle Smith (Honda) won the six-lap dash ahead of fellow Briton Gino Rea (MV Agusta) and world champion Kenan Sofuoglu (Kawasaki) in incredibly difficult conditions. Polesitter Randy Krummenacher (Kawasaki) and PJ Jacobsen (Honda) were also in the hunt before running off and crashing receptively.

Championship contender Jules Cluzel (MV Agusta) finished well back in 18th position, while Aussie pair Lachlan Epis (Kawasaki) and Aiden Wagner (MV Agusta) failed to qualify. Glenn Scott (Honda) missed Assen with a leg injury.

Krummenacher still leads on 71pts from Sofuoglu (61), Smith (41), Cluzel (38) and Rea (36).

ASSEN RESULTS