Rea 16th and 18th in Cremona Superbike races

Jonathan Rea's struggles on his return to action after injury continued as the Northern Ireland rider finished 16th and 18th in Sunday's races at the World Superbikes round in Cremona.

The six-time world champion was 19th in his first race of the season on Saturday after missing the opening three rounds of the campaign because of foot fractures sustained when crashing during testing at Phillip Island in February.

Rea subsequently had surgery in Belfast and had continued his recuperation at home before returning to action in Italy.

The Northern Ireland man finished 19.2 seconds behind Nicolo Bulega in Sunday morning's superpole race as the Italian Ducati rider repeated his race one victory over Toprak Razgatlioglu, with Alvaro Bautista again completing the podium spots.

The top three were unchanged in race two as Bulega secured a dominant 1.826-second victory after moving ahead of Turkey's defending world champion Razgatlioglu on lap four.

Rea was in a points position early on in race two as he was in 14th spot but was down to 16th by lap four and lost further ground over the remaining 19 laps as he finished 44 seconds off the pace in 18th.

Bulega's weekend clean sweep in Italy was his seventh victory in the 12 races so far this season.

The Ducati rider extended his world championship lead over Razgatlioglu to 34 points, with third-placed Bautista already 73 points off the pace.

Danilo Petrucci finished fourth in race two, with Great Britain's Sam Lowes securing a battling fifth spot in race two as he held off Iker Lecuona despite suffering badly with flu.

Rea's Pata Yamaha team-mate Andrea Locatelli was eighth in race two.