This year has seen the return of the hallowed Castrol Honda name to World Superbike Racing and today at the Dutch Superbike race1 at Assen, Castrol Honda has taken its first win of 2011 in the hands of Jonathan Rea. The race was keenly contested in the early stages but towards the end Jonathan Rea had pulled away sufficiently from Max Biaggi who finished in second place on the Alitalia Aprilia, comfortably ahead of fellow MotoGP refugee Carlos Checa who started from pole on the sole Althea Ducati. Carlos Checa himself was reasonably ahead of another MotoGP refugee and a new addition to this years Superbike grid, Marco Melandri on the Yamaha. Breaking the string of GP refugees was Michel Fabrizio who rode a good strong race on the only Suzuki on the grid to finish in fifth. The Kawasaki of Tom Sykes raised expectations sky high when he reached P3 during the early part of the race and also went on to set the fastest lap of the race but everything came crashing down when he went rapidly backwards apparently due to a gamble of a soft rear tyre that did not pay off. He finally finished fourteenth behind his team mate Joan Lascorz who had a less spectacular and more steady race to finish eleventh.