Jonathan Rea drops a place to fifth in the championship

Jonathan Rea took a podium position by finishing third in race two at Sunday's World Superbike round at Magny Cours.

The HannSpree Ten Kate rider from Ballyclare retired after seven laps of race one which was won by Ben Spies.

Rea came in behind Noriyuki Haga and Max Biaggi in race two and now lies fifth in the championship standings.

Eugene Laverty crashed midway through the World Supersport race but remounted to finish 14th and is now 20 points behind series leader Cal Crutchlow.

Crutchlow was second in Sunday's race and takes his sizeable advantage into the final round in Portugal on 25 October.

Rea lies 14 points behind fourth-placed Biaggi.

"All weekend we had a good pace but it just seems that, come the first race, we couldn't put it together," said Rea.

"I'm really sorry for the team because I take a lot of the blame for that.

"It put me out of my rhythm and then I got a bit of arm pump at the end of race two.

"I was running with the guys at the front until about five laps from the end because the package we had here was as strong as at Imola last week.

"We'll regroup back at the workshop and come back strong for Portimao."

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