Rea wins Assen Superpole race marking 100th win for Kawasaki

After defeating Ducati’s Alvaro Bautista in a shortened Assen Superpole race, Jonathan Rea made a record by marking the first Kawasaki rider to win 100 WorldSBK races.

Toprak Razgatlioglu, the defending champion, led the race from pole position on his Yamaha, with Bautista storming from fifth to second place ahead of Rea.

The top three riders began to draw away from the rest of the pack, with Razgatlioglu leading Bautista and Rea by a hair.

The riders maintained their positions until the sixth lap, when Bautista took the lead by diving down the inside of Razgatlioglu into Turn 8, with Rea passing him four turns later to demote him to third.

After that, Bautista and Rea had their own duel, with Rea taking the lead on the penultimate lap to win his second race of the weekend and extend his championship lead.  In a race to the finish line, Bautista was fortunate to cling on to second place, with Razgatlioglu finishing just 0.047s behind him.

Andrea Locatelli finished fourth on the second Yamaha with a nice harvest of points, while MotoGP concert Iker Lecuona finished fifth on the Honda with another strong performance.

Bonovo BMW’s Loris Baz was the top independent rider in the field, finishing sixth just under a second ahead of Garrett Gerloff of GRT Yamaha.

Ducati’s Michael Ruben Rinaldi and Motocorsa’s Axel Bassani finished eighth and ninth, respectively, ahead of Go Eleven’s Philipp Oettl, while factory BMW rider Scott Redding finished 11th.

Kawasaki’s Alex Lowes retired for the second time in two races and will start this weekend’s last full-distance race from the bottom of the field. After wildcard participant Gabriele Ruiu’s BMW stalled on the grid, the Superpole race was cut short to nine laps.

After being deemed to have gained an advantage by running onto the green, Bautista was downgraded to third, prompting an outburst from the Spaniard.

2022 WORLD SUPERBIKE ASSEN, NETHERLANDS – AMENDED SUPERPOLE RACE RESULTS