Jonathan Rea won the second of today’s 11th round of World Superbike championship races at Nurburgring in Germany on a Hannspree Ten Kate Honda. It was his and the team’s second World Superbike victory of the season and his fifth podium finish. Rea’s success came after placing fourth in the first outing.

Rea swapped to his number two machine for the restart of the first race as his CBR1000RR Fireblade had not been giving him the correct level of engine braking.

“Apart from the issues with my number one bike in the first part of race one, I had a real problem with turn three and messed up the race. I was a bit disappointed with fourth and was really motivated to ride better in race two,” said Rea.

In race two, the 22-year-old Northern Irishman fought through to the lead on lap four after a sluggish start and diced for the lead with championship leader Japan’s Noriyuki Haga on a Ducati. Rea went for an inside overtaking move on the Ducati rider into the first turn. The pair touched with the Ducati rider crashing out.

“I got a really bad start and had to get a bit aggressive on people in turn one. Haga ran quite wide and I went on the inside and, although I didn’t see him I felt a big bang and only found out he crashed after the race. I’m sorry for that but don’t think it was my fault,” said Rea.

Rea went on to hold off a late challenge from Spies and was even able to break the Nurburgring lap record on his final lap.

“I knew I had to make no mistakes on the last lap because Ben was so close, so breaking the lap record then was great. But it’s really a testament to how strong the bike is now and hopefully we can take this momentum on to the next race,” said Rea

His Hannspree Ten Kate Honda team-mate, Carlos Checa, also enjoyed a successful day with two third place finishes – the first behind new championship leader, Ben Spies, who was second in race two.

“We knew it would be tough going into turn one and in the first race I just tried to catch the top guys. I got up to Johnny and had a good fight with him but right up to the last turn I didn’t know what would happen,” said Checa.

“I made a really great start to race two – I couldn’t believe it. Got into another battle with Haga early on but I could see Johnny was strong when he passed me. I tried to stay with Ben Spies and lost a few metres in the middle of the race but it was very good to keep third for me and for the team. It’s been a really satisfying weekend,” said Checa.

All in all, we’ve had some good results this weekend. Jonathan had some problems to resolve after the race but, to his credit, he solved them himself – we didn’t change anything on the bike,”said Ronald ten Kate – team manager.

“Jonathan’s win in race two maybe overshadowed Carlos’s results, but fair play to him for two brilliant podiums. He has worked and ridden really well this weekend and we’ll now try to improve the bike even more for Imola.”

2009 World Superbike championship, round 11 – Nurburgring, Germany (5.13km, 2 x 20 laps) results:

Race one:
1 Ben Spies (USA) Yamaha 39’04.818s
2 Noriyuki Haga (JPN) Ducati +3.850s
3 Carlos Checa (ESP) Hannspree Ten Kate Honda +6.990
4 Jonathan Rea (GBR) Hannspree Ten Kate Honda +7.109
5 Max Biaggi (ITA) Aprilia +12.825
6 Leon Haslam (GBR) Honda +13.243
14 Ryuichi Kiyonari (JPN) Ten Kate Honda Racing +31.188

Race two:
1 Jonathan Rea (GBR) Hannspree Ten Kate Honda 39’01.561
2 Ben Spies (USA) Yamaha +0.786s
3 Carlos Checa (ESP) Hannspree Ten Kate Honda +4.993
4 Max Biaggi (ITA) Aprilia +8.191
5 Leon Haslam (GBR) Honda +10.907
6 Troy Corser (AUS) BMW +17.152
7 Ryuichi Kiyonari (JPN) Ten Kate Honda Racing +19.743

Championship points after 11 of 14 rounds:
Spies 364,
Haga 346,
Fabrizio 289,
Rea 244,
Biaggi 224,
Haslam 201,
Checa 177,
Tom Sykes (GBR) Yamaha 165,
Shane Byrne (GBR) Ducati 134,
Kiyonari 130.

Next round: Imola, Italy – 25-27 September