Rea battles car and 'plane at Silverstone.

As if running at the front of the Bennetts British Superbike championship isn't enough of a challenge, Red Bull Honda's Johnny Rea recently took up the opportunity to race an F1 car and air plane.

David Coulthard was the man in the driving seat of the F1 car and Steve Jones took up the controls of the race 'plane for the exciting event which was staged at Silverstone earlier this week. Air pylons were erected for the 'plane to race through while the car and bike fought it out on track. The 'plane went on to win with a lap time of 1min 4secs.

"I didn't expect to win it and was worried initially about the tight corners, especially when pulling about 10 G's around Stowe corner," said Jones. "It was amazing to see how the bike and the car down below on the track, and to hear the F1 car when it accelerated."

Second place went to Coulthard with a time of 1min 31secs: "I wasn't surprised with the result to be honest, given that we know planes can fly faster than cars," he said. "I was very interested to see how the bike handles the corners from such close range especially as at times we were only a couple of metres apart. I was also surprised at how well the plane handled some of the tight turns. It was a great challenge but no one likes coming in second place. I'd like to see a replay of the race to see just how tight to the corners Steve flew!"

That left Rea in third place lapping in 1min 57secs, speaking to Crash.net Radio he summed up his day.

"Today has been awesome! Going into the second corner here at Silverstone there were two air pylons which was a corner for the plane and at that stage I was leading the formula one car, it was approximately one metre behind me and the plane was three or four metres over head, I've never experienced anything like that in my life. It is something I can carry with me now, it was pretty damn good," he smiled.

Having a bike and car on track at the same time throws up safety implications so they had to keep their distance as Rea explained: "The way the day was set up I would lead across the start finish straight and the safe place for David to pass was on the Hanger straight going out towards the Stowe corner. So he would come past on the right side and we would look over at each other and give a wave."

Rea is a biker at heart and when asked if he fancied a go in the car or the plane his response was, "I think my Red Bull Honda is the one for me. Four wheels don't really tickle my fancy. I think I'll just hang onto my bike for the minute."

The next round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship takes place at Croft in North Yorkshire on the 13th August and Rea is confident of a strong result there. "I think we can possibly win both races at Croft and maybe on the podium for sure. Our bike works really well round there as we've done a lot of testing."

Currently running in fifth place in the championship he has set his sights on fourth place which is held by former British Superbike champ, Shane 'Shakey' Byrne. "We need to bridge the gap on the leaders and fourth place which I think is possible, so we shall just see what happens," said Rea. "If we have a good free practice on Friday morning, and the Red Bull Honda is working well we can push to be there come Sunday. Any thing is possible, Shane Byrne is a realistic target in fourth place."

With the final round at Brands offering double points Rea is aware how strong Byrne will be there. "He is twenty one points in front, but Brand Hatch is Shakey's back yard so we are just going to have to be two steps ahead of the game come Brands. Go there, give it what we have got and hopefully come out on top," Rea concluded.