Last weekend saw the World Superbike races kick-off for this season with round one at Aragon. The rain in Spain was heavy and consistent and created tricky conditions for the first races of the year, and in fact stayed for the whole weekend, on and off.
On Saturday it was race one, and the riders lined up for a later than usual start to their season, Covid19 regulations still affecting most sporting events in some way or another.
Race 1 results looked familiar with P1 Jonathan Rea Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK, P2 Alex Lowes Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK and P3 Toprak Razgatlioglu Pata Yamaha with BRIXX WorldSBK.
If this was not enough domination from Kawasaki, on the Superpole race it was Jonathan Rea P1, Alex Lowes P2 and then Garrett Gerloff GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team P3.
The most significant statistic to come from the weekend, however, was the fantastic achievement of Jonathan Rea winning his 100th race. The six-times world champion Rea now adds this to his CV. The great and the good lined up to congratulate Jonathan, including Giacomo Agostini, Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez, and one of the other British multiple world champions, Lewis Hamilton.
Race 2 on Sunday:
Those not familiar with the World Superbikes Championship we need to point out some differences, well different from the MotoGP paddock. In WSB there is a race one on Saturday, followed by a Superpole Race, which is a short sprint race, then on Sunday is Race2.
It was mixed conditions and mixed tyres for many on the grid on Sunday morning. On pole was Jonathan Rea, his teammate Alex Lowes P2 and Garrett Gerloff, P3. Tyres would be critical in these conditions, so to note, Jonathan Rea was on intermediate front and rear, Scott Redding all slicks.
Jonathan Rea blasted off from the front with Alex Lowes and Gerloff trying to hang on, Rea on a mission for a potential 101 race wins. Soon Chaz Davies slid off into the kitty litter, lap one and out. Meanwhile, the Kawasakis’ of Rea and Lowes were out in front on lap one and looking dominant once again until Gerloff split the teammates, then a late move by Gerloff on Rea, meant Garrett was on the floor and Jonathan cutting the corner, collecting gravel but staying on. Having cut the corner Rea gave places back leaving Toprak Razgatlioglu first with Alex Lowes in tow.
With 12 laps to go Scott Redding hit the front, and started to look comfortable, the all-slick tyres on his bike now looking like an inspired choice. Behind Redding, there was a feisty race going on with Michael Van Der Mark, Alex Lowes, Toprak and Rea all at it. From this point on the race was mostly status quo, with Redding’s slick shod Ducati dominating the proceedings. Rea did well to recover from the Gerloff incident but his intermediate tyres were now mostly a disadvantage.
The results: Scott Redding, Aruba.it Racing Ducati P1. Jonathan Rea, Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK P2, and Alex Lowes Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK P3.
The WSB crew are on a back-to-back so will race at Estoril in Portugal 29th/30th of May.
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Author: Martin Northern
Founder of Bike Directory
