April 19th, 2011
REA takes first Honda win of the 2011 season
Jonathan Rea (Castrol Honda) took a race victory and a third place finish at the 2011 FIM Superbike Championship round at Assen in the Netherlands, hoisting himself up the championship standings as a result. Carlos Checa (Ducati) won race two, and he remains the championship leader
The dry conditions experienced in practice continued on race day as Rea hit the lead on lap four of race one and was never headed from then on. In race two Rea did not get the same chance to fight for the win due to changes in track temperature, but still scored his second podium of the day, finishing only 3.584 seconds from the winner.
At the top of the championship Checa extended his lead and now has a total of 132 points, with double second place rider at Assen Max Biaggi (Aprilia) going second on 89. Marco Melandri (Yamaha) crashed out of race two, and is now on a total of 85 points, only six ahead of Rea's 79.
Jonathan Rea (Castrol Honda) Race result: 1st / 3rd Championship position: 4th
“We worked hard over the weekend as a whole team, trying to sort the settings of the bike out. In the background we were always thinking about set-up for the race so that paid off in the cold temperatures of race one, but we have not had the warmer conditions of race two all weekend so we were slightly underprepared. We could have made a gamble with the softer A tyre, but to be honest I do not think it would have worked for us, so we stayed on the harder C. The question mark was the front tyre in race two as it was way too soft and moving around too much. But a first and a third, I feel like we are back where we belong. It's nice to see the guys in the team smiling. Two podiums and good points in the bag and now we are going into some circuits where we should be able to claw back some more points.”
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