Four out of four as Rea doubles up in Thailand

Rea once again produced another metronomic performance to lead from start to finish, pulling out a comfortable lead over Melandri who held second for almost the entire duration of the race, only to be passed by Sykes once again on the last lap. Lowes took a lonely fourth on the improving R1, while Davies salvaged 10 points from the race in sixth. The Ducati rider had moved quickly through the pack but suffered a problem with his throttle’s calibration, a result of the part being changed following the earlier crash. “Finishing sixth is a salvage after the crash, but we could have been close to the podium at the restart,” he said afterwards.

“I was following Marco but I misjudged his speed a little bit so I went to the outside. For me the rear always locks there, but that time it did it more than usual, perhaps because I was on a dirty part of the track, and couldn’t recover the grip. Unfortunately, we had some issues with the throttle after some parts were changed for safety. Still, we have many more points than after two rounds last year, and now we’ll go to more favourable tracks. The championship is long.”

Speaking after his double win, Rea commented:“This is the best start to a season ever in my career. It is important to maximise these points when we can because it is how I built my championships in the past. When we can win, make sure we win, and then we can try and consolidate. These four victories are nearly halfway to my win tally from last year already! It is a good start and I just feel comfortable on the bike. We took the bike set-up we had from Phillip Island to here and it just pretty much worked. That is unheard of, so I have a good bond with the bike. There are still some areas we need to improve for the coming races but Kawasaki are working hard on this. We expect to improve the bike again in the next races.”

Camier比赛两个带来失望,他们的bike expired in a cloud of smoke while running seventh. Eugene Laverty had a tough weekend on the Milwaukee Aprilia though, scoring just a solitary point in Thailand. The Irishman had dropped out of seventh in race one with a technical problem on the final lap, while he had been running fifth on Sunday before crashing and remounting to take 15^that the chequered flag.

The Superbike World Championship returns to Europe for its next races, taking place at the Spanish Aragon circuit on the weekend of 1-2 April.

2017 Superbike World Championship

Thai round – race one (20 laps)

Thai round – race two (16 laps)

Championship standings (after two of 13 rounds)