Rea sat nearly half a second down on early pacesetter Toprak Razgatlioglu after his first run in Saturday’s 15-minute pole shootout, but found a whopping eight tenths on his final flying lap to strengthen his status as the best qualifier of the season.
The Northern Irishman’s time of 1m39.610s was just under two tenths up on what Razgatlioglu managed on his factory Yamaha and over half a second quicker than anything witnessed in practice earlier this weekend.
