Jonathan Rea: “It’s been a difficult day", but Remy "really fast"

After finishing second fastest to Toprak Razgatlioglu during the recent Misano test, Pata Yamaha's Jonathan Rea was left in just 14th place on day one of the WorldSBK race weekend.

New development tyre options from Pirelli added to the Friday workload, while hotter conditions compared to the test left Rea in search of grip.

The six-time world champion lapped almost 1.5s slower than his test best of 1m 33.133s, leaving him one second from Razgatlioglu's pace-setting Friday lap.

“It’s been a difficult day, in part because we arrived here with some different specification tyres from Pirelli so we had to factor that into our planning today,” Rea said.

“I felt okay on the bike, just the conditions are different to the test so we are struggling for grip and the bike is behaving a little bit differently.

“I feel like I’m riding close to the limit but it’s clearly not, we still have room for some margin because Remy [Gardner] was really fast today.

“It’s a mixed bag because I’m okay in Sector 1 and 2 but we need to improve in the second part of the lap - something to focus on for tomorrow.”

Gardner, who led the Yamaha challenge with third in the afternoon behind only the Ducatis of Nicolo Bulega and Alvaro Bautista, said:

“The grip today was a bit lower compared to the test we had at the end of May, but at the end we were able to pull out some good laps; our Friday was a good one.

“Of course it’ll be important to have a good qualifying to start in a good position, here in Misano starting grid position is important to build a solid race, which is our goal.”