Source: Supplied.

Kawasaki Racing Team’s Jonathan Rea was satisfied to leave Imola with a pair of second-place finishes on Sunday, managing to stretch his Superbike World Championship (WorldSBK) lead in the process.

Despite Ducati’s Chaz Davies being in dominant form to take a clean-sweep of the Italian round, Rea was able to bring his ZX-10RR home in P2 on Saturday and Sunday and leads the standings by 74 points.

“It was difficult at times today, especially because I made a mistake going into the Variante Bassa chicane at one point,” Rea reflected. “I lost all the track positions that I gained in the first few corners and that changed my race completely. I feel that if I did not lose those I would have had something extra to – maybe not win the race – but for sure to go with Chaz. I got stuck behind some traffic after that, but when I went through I was able to keep a consistent rhythm.

“I was too far back from Chaz but today we halved the winning margin compared to yesterday. I raced with the new soft prototype front tyre and in these temperatures I think it was maybe too soft an option for our bike. But I am generally content to have increased our championship lead, take 40 points and get on the podium twice at what is probably not our strongest track right now. It has been a really positive weekend.”