Castletown resident Jonathan Rea completed a confident double in the latest rounds of the FIM Superbike World Championship at Portimao in Portugal over the weekend.

With three rounds of the championship remaining, the first of those at Magny Cours in France the weekend after next, Rea leads the series by a clear 120 points.

He won Saturday’s race from pole position on the grid, but had a more difficult challenge on Sunday when he started from ninth place - under the reverse grid rules that come into play this season.

He took only two laps to get into the lead and despite a small electronics glitch with his bike he carried on to achieve his 34th win for Kawasaki .

This made him the company’s most prolific all-time winner and the third most successful World SBK rider in the history of the class with 49 wins (10 fewer than Carl Fogarty’s tally of 59).

’I am really happy to win and aside from one little issue it was plain sailing race,’ said Jonathan after Sunday’s race.

’I made some tough passes in the first laps to get my track position and as soon as I hit the front I made my rhythm and went away.

’The championship lead is massive now and we can go to Magny Cours thinking about trying to secure the title. If we have a solid enough weekend there we can get it done.’