Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea was surprised by his five and six-second margins of victory in Thailand's World Superbike races on Sunday and expected to be in a three-way scrap with Leon Haslam and Alex Lowes.

The Isle of Man resident cleared off from the front in both encounters after being dominant through most of the weekend but he says it wasn’t as easy as it looked.

“It was sure not easy but it is probably one of the most controlled race weekends as the bike was so good. I felt like I was riding quite well but we expected it to be tough with Haslam and Lowes there too,” said Rea, speaking to bikesportnews.com from Manchester Airport.

“My plan from the beginning was to get on to my pace as early as possible and try to go away, if the group was three, then so be it and in the end after three laps, I was getting amazing signals with a good gap. I kept my head down until I got a two-second gap and then managed it from there.

“It was a perfect weekend. They don’t happen too often. I felt at one with the bike, it was unbelievable. I am enjoying riding, I’ve had a really good off-season compared to the year before, coming back from a broken femur, it was a constructive winter.”

Rea has only dropped five points from a possible 100 so far with a second place to Haslam at Phillip Island but the Isle of Man resident had a game plan to get away from the pack if he could, instead of getting into a dog-fight in both races.

“To be honest, it would have been so much more difficult if I hadn’t done that. Aprilia at that track had three kilometres per hour on us on the straight on average without slipstream, so I knew in an out-and-out race with Haslam or Lowes it would be tougher, so that’s why I just got my head down. It’s always easier to manage a gap.

“I was surprised in race one as we had a bit extra in the last ten laps. The tyre didn’t drop off as much and we could keep in the 1’34s and my guys were able to give me Leon’s pace right till the end on the board, so I could see they were having some tyre problems. I don’t expect that kind of weekend very often but it’s nice when they come along.”

See Thursday’s issue of Bikesport News for full Thai coverage