World Superbike great Jonathan Rea admits there are “lots of areas” for improvement with the factory Honda as the HRC test rider made his racing return at Portimao in Portugal.

Rea filled in for injury-hit Jake Dixon at round two of the championship in his first race weekend since he rode his final race for Yamaha at Jerez in Spain in October last year.

The 39-year-old was restricted to limited laps on the Honda prior to the Portuguese round, with Rea managing around 50 laps in mixed conditions during winter testing.

He finished 19th in Saturday’s opening race behind HRC team-mate Somkiat Chantra and was 18th in the Superpole race. The six-time champion earned his best result of 12th in the final race of the weekend on Sunday as Italy’s Nicolo Bulega completed a clean sweep on the Aruba.it Ducati to make it a perfect six victories from six starts in 2026.

placeholder image — World Superbike legend Jonathan Rea (Honda HRC) in action at Portimao in Portugal. (Photo credit: HRC)

Rea, who won 119 times during his World Superbike career, including 13 wins at Portimao, acknowledged it would “take time” to turn Honda’s fortunes around.

“I was pleasantly impressed when I first rode the bike,” said Rea. “It does so many things incredible, but there's a lot of areas to improve, and they're motivated to do that.

“So I think it's just [a matter of] time. You're racing against manufacturers that have been at the top and constantly improve, so when you're improving, you're just catching up.

“Racing never stands still, so of course, like every manufacturer, you can improve all over the bike, but with Honda there's definitely margins to improve, but we’ll keep that in-house for now.”

Rea retired from full-time racing last year after two tough seasons at Yamaha following a record-breaking nine years as a Kawasaki rider.

He is expected to have additional opportunities to race this year as a wildcard at selected rounds, including at Donington Park in the summer.

Ducati’s Bulega, the championship runner-up to Toprak Razgatlioglu in 2024 and 2025, has extended his lead in the standings following a second successive treble after his hat-trick in the opener at Phillip Island in Australia in February.

Team-mate Iker Lecuona finished second in all three races over the weekend, with home hero Miguel Oliveira claiming third three times on the ROKiT BMW.

Round three of the championship takes place at Assen in the Netherlands from April 17-19.