Jonathan Rea says the 'personal highlight' of his short MotoGP s🌃tint this season was beating Italian legend Valenti༺no Rossi at Aragon in Spain.

The World Superbike star was draft🧸ed into the Repsol Honda MotoGP team as a replacement for the injured Casey Stoner.

Rea finished eighth on his serie♐s debut at Misano and seventh at Aragon, where he took the chequered flag ahead of Ducati rider Ross🧜i.

Rossi ran off track on lap one at Aꦏragon after almost clipping the back of Rea. Neverther, the result was a moment the 25-year-old Ulsterman, now based in the Isle of Man, will cherish.

"I achieved two top-10 finishes but my personal highlight was beating Valentino Rossi in Aragon," Rea told BB🦹C Sport.

"Overall I did a good job and can walk away wi🥃th my he๊ad held high.

"Both championships are world class but, MotoGP was very🌄 different for me and it took me a while to get used to the tyres.

"I came away from the experience as a much better rider and hopefully I will come back bigger and stronger for 2013," added Re꧑a, who will be joined by fellow Briton Leon Haslam in the꧟ new-look Pata Honda World Superbike team for 2013 under the Ten Kate umbrella.

R🥃ea was strongly linked to the satellite Gresini Honda outfit for next season and confirmed he was in the frame for the ride, which fi𝓀nally went to Alvaro Bautista.

"There was an o🅰ption to go there at one stage but in the ♈end it didn't materialise," he said.

"One of the big drawbacks of𓂃 that paddock is that things can be quite political and my face didn't fit൲ there at this time.

"I'm happy to stay in World Superbikes with Honda for the moment but myꦜ eventual goal is to go to MotoGP full-time an𓃲d show what I can do there."

Rea finished fifth overall⛄ in the World Superbike Championship this year.