WSBK: Rea cruising towards fourth title after Misano double

Reigning triple champion Jonathan Rea took an emphatic double victory at the Misano round of the World Superbike championship, having beaten Donington Park sensation Michael van der Mark in a thrilling end-of-race encounter.

Rea caught and passed the Dutchman towards the latter stages of the race but was put under reasonable amounts of pressure by the Yamaha ace. Rea held on for yet another win and his sixth at the Misano circuit, whereas van der Mark achieved a much needed return to the podium.

Tom Sykes, who started race one from pole, left the weekend with no podium, whereas Marco Melandri, Chaz Davies and Eugene Laverty all mounted the rostrum. This does mean that there was no consistent runner-up to Rea, who extends his lead in the championship over Chaz Davies to 92.

“That was a super-super hard race. Yesterday I controlled the race. I could lead from the front, make my rhythm and go away. Today I could not make that in the beginning and I spent so much tyre and energy coming through the traffic. The bikes are so evenly matched now it is so hard to make a pass and make it stick. It was a hard job to track down Mikey and when I arrived I was starting to panic a little bit with five laps to go,” said the Ulsterman, who was racing with the Dunlop family in his thoughts, following the loss of William Dunlop at the Skerries 100.

“I wanted to be in the lead by that stage and make a gap. I was worried about getting through because he was not making mistakes, but then he ran into the last corner a little bit deep, and I was able to pull alongside and outbrake him in T1. I made a lot of passes in that race and it was really hard work.”

World Superbikes now heads on its long Summer break but Rea will be in action at the Suzuka 8 hour event in Japan at the end of the month.