Team Pata Honda's Rea Qualifies 2nd, Haslam 9th in eni Superbike World Championship Round 8 in Portugal

Portimao - Portugal    05.07.2014                 Front row for Rea in Portugal Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea will start tomorrow’s two eighth-round World Superbike Championship races from the front row of the grid after setting the second-fastest time in this afternoon’s Superpole qualifying session at the Autodromo Internacional Algarve in Portugal. After topping the combined free practice timing sheets this morning, Rea, 27, took his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP into Superpole in confident mood to lap the 4.593km Portimao circuit in a time of 1m42.765s, 0.2s behind the pole position time of Tom Sykes. Rea’s Pata Honda team-mate, Leon Haslam, was also in a positive frame-of-mind heading into Superpole after showing good speed in both today’s free practice sessions. The 31-year-old was just 0.1s from Rea's fastest time in FP3 when the top ten riders were separated by just three tenths of a second. As Superpole 2 began, Haslam set the third-fastest time on his initial run on race rubber, but was unable to significantly improve his time on the qualifying tyre and he will start tomorrow’s two 20-lap races from the third row of the grid in ninth place. Jonathan Rea  - P2 It was really windy for qualifying this afternoon and we made quite a big change to the set-up on the rear of the bike for Superpole after we’d compared data with Leon. It looked like he had a little bit more grip and it’s really good that he’s also on a good pace here this weekend because we can share data much better and I’m also learning some things from him. We’ve made a lot of progress here compared to the last few races and I’m really enjoying riding my bike here. We’ve gone back to basics, to something we know, and it’s good to come to Portimao where we have a lot of data. I’m really excited about tomorrow’s races. We’ve done a lot of laps on old tyres so we’ll have to wait and see if all that hard work will pay off. Leon Haslam  - P9 Obviously I’m disappointed because I was P3 on the race tyre and I felt pretty confident that we could make another step with the qualifying tyre. On the first lap I had a small problem so I cruised to try and get some more life from the tyre. I had another problem going into turn five on the second lap and my best time ended up being on lap three when the tyre was finished. It’s kind of frustrating because we’ve definitely been in the ball park to get back to the front boys there. But I’m feeling really good on the race tyre, we’ve done some good race runs so I’m looking forward to the two races tomorrow. Pieter Breddels  - technical co-ordinator It's been quite an exciting day and this morning we made quite a good breakthrough with Jonathan's electronics settings. He immediately went quick on used tyres and the feeling was back. In the afternoon for FP4 we tried a few settings changes which didn't really work so we went back to the morning set-up. He took second place on the grid which is a good place to start. He normally goes quite well here so I expect him to be in the fight for podium finishes tomorrow. Leon has been going extremely well this weekend and his pace is also good on used tyres. However, with the qualifier in Superpole, he got ninth on the grid but, just before putting in the qualifier, he was third fastest on the race tyre. That was a bit of a shame but everything is looking good for tomorrow and I think he can fight near the front which will be go od for him and the whole team. Weather Sunny Air 28°C Track 49°C Humidity 50%   Qualifying Results - Results   1   Tom Sykes 1m42.484s GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team 2   Jonathan Rea 1m42.765s GBR HONDA Pata Honda 3   Chaz Davies 1m42.924s GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team 4   Marco Melandri 1m43.038s ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team 5   Loris Baz 1m43.048s FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team 6   Sylvain Guintoli 1m43.076s FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team 7   Eugene Laverty 1m43.245s IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki 8   Davide Guigliano 1m43.317s ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team 9   Leon Haslam 1m43.475s GBR HONDA Pata Honda 10   Sylvain Barrier 1m43.754s FRA BMW BMW Motorrad Italia Superbike Team   Copyright-free images © 2014 Pata Honda