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ROAD RACE FIM SUPERBIKE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 1 / FEBRUARY 23-25, 2018 PHILLIP ISLAND CIRCUIT / PHILLIP ISLAND, AUSTRALIA P76 iii My Own Race: 1 JONATHAN REA 3RD (6-2) WORLDSBK "I'm really happy, especially with the way I've been feeling this week," said defending champ Jonathan Rea after the second day of racing. "I've been sick since Wednesday so to finish second today after what happened yesterday, I'm really happy. The bike was a step better so I want to thank all my crew. With our exit into the straight I knew the only chance I had to win today was to lead onto the straight…but I'm happy to at least make it exciting for the fans out there, they've been incredible and every year when I come here I get so much support from Australia so thank you very much. I'm looking forward to moving onto Thailand now, improving my- self, getting healthy and getting a good feeling with the bike." 45 JAKE GAGNE 15TH (12-13) WORLDSBK American Jake Gagne was happy with his weekend de- spite suffering a crash in race two. "Saturday was prog- ress and all weekend we are making more progress," Gagne said. "I did not get off to a very good start on Saturday and I need to work on that a little bit more. I got passed by some guys I did not want to get passed by, as I wanted to get with that next group ahead. The bike felt good and was running well. There were a couple of key areas, key turns, where we can improve, like turn four. We had some fun in race one and it was good to battle with some of those guys. It has been a while since that happened. It was a good day. In race two, I felt even bet- ter, but I got caught up with some other riders and when trying to make a pass at turn four had the door closed on me and crashed. It was a real shame but at least I could recover to finish the race and score some points. Overall, I've improved my pace a lot over the weekend and got points in both races so it's something to build on. I wish we were going to Thailand tomorrow." 99 PJ JACOBSEN 16TH (16-14) WORLDSBK American PJ Jacobsen made his WorldSBK debut. "I was quite happy coming here for the first time on the superbike," Jacobsen said. "Every time I have been here I have been pole or second position. My confidence got knocked back a little bit when I had a huge high side in one of the free practices, but other than that, if we had more steps with the bike we could have been a lot closer to the front of the field. Looking from the outside it probably does not look too great but you have to keep a positive outlook and keep making steps. I think going back with the system now we can improve some things with the electronics, the throttle reactions and also with the chassis. There is some stuff in the race I was not happy about; I think we can find a big step in something that is holding us back. I will not have any testing before Buriram."