Rea will try every trick in the book
JONATHAN REA has a few tricks up his sleeve ahead of this weekend’s two World Superbike races at Assen.
Despite missing out on the top spot in yesterday’s final free practice, the triple champion is ready to up his game at the Dutch track today.
The Kawasaki Racing rider dropped to sixth in the last few minutes of the session. But he plans to turn it around in this morning’s qualifying before the first race at around noon.
Rea, who has 11 Assen victories to his name, said: “I really enjoy it here and in the past it has been really nice to me.
“I’ve done a lot of laps here, racing and testing, and I know some special tricks which I’ll be using on the last lap.”
Local hero Michael Van der Mark clocked the best time of 1min 35.156secs aboard his Pata Yamaha, followed by Aruba Ducati’s Marco Melandri, with the Aruba Junior team’s Michael Ruben Rinaldi third quickest.
As Rea bids to extend his championship lead, Welshman Chaz Davies will head into today’s race playing catch up.
Davies, currently 12 points adrift of Rea, had a tough start to the weekend as he slumped to 10th in FP2 before finding better pace with his Aruba Ducati and climbing to eighth.
While Assen may not be his strongest circuit, Davies is keen to bag two solid results to keep in close contact.
“Historically, Assen hasn’t been our most favourable track but we’ve improved our set-up and pace there over the years,” he said.
“We’re getting closer and closer to the goal, and we basically know what we need here now.”