Jonathan Rea completes another double as Tom Sykes suffers bike problems

Rea won his fourth double of the season

(Getty Images)

Jonathan Rea scored his fourth double victory of the season in Sunday’s races at Portimao, Portugal, to cement his place at the top of the World Superbike Championship standings.

Jonathan Rea scored his fourth double victory of the season in Sunday’s races at Portimao, Portugal, to cement his place at the top of the World Superbike Championship standings.

The Northern Ireland Kawasaki rider recovered from starting off the third row of the grid to take the opening race ahead of team-mate Tom Sykes.

Rea then grabbed his 10th victory of the campaign when he took the chequered flag in the second race, this time ahead of Ducati’s Davide Giugliano.

Rea is 124 points clear of Sykes in the standings, with 330 points. Leon Haslam (Aprilia) is third, ahead of Chaz Davies (Ducati) in fourth.

Rea started race one from eighth on the grid following a crash in qualifying, but produced a blistering start and went on to secure a winning margin of 9.384 seconds ahead of Sykes and Davies.

Showers fell with six laps left and the bikes started to come in for a change to wet tyres, with Sykes pitting later as he continued to battle it out with Rea at the front.

However, Sykes, who had started second behind Giugliano on pole, then suffered a mechanical problem as he headed into the final lap, which Rea took full advantage of to power ahead and record his ninth victory.

With the track then drying out as the rain cleared, Rea was able to go on to take his season victory tally into double figures in race two, finishing 5.416sec ahead of the Giugliano.

Sykes had also been in the leading trio but was again troubled by technical issues with his ZX10R, which saw him eventually finish eighth.

The next round of the championship takes place at Misano, Italy, on 21 June.

Bruce Anstey sealed his 10th Isle of Man TT victory yesterday by winning a thrilling six-lap Superbike race.

The New Zealander overtook long-time leader Ian Hutchinson during the pit-stops at the end of the fourth lap to clinch victory in a race held over from Saturday due to bad weather.

Anstey’s winning margin was 10.97sec, the Honda rider setting a new race record. He also set the fastest lap of the day at 131.977mph on his final circuit.

James Hillier finished third after Michael Dunlop crashed into a back-marker without serious injury on the final lap.

“I can’t believe it, I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” said Anstey. “I almost ran into Michael on the last lap, which put me off my rhythm a bit, but I managed to get my head together again. I’ve won all the other classes but this is the one I wanted. The bike ran perfectly.”

Hillier finished 48.5sec behind Hutchinson on his Kawasaki, with John McGuinness fourth on a Honda.