Jonathan Rea stretched his WorldSBK Championship win after finishing the top in the second round of the Aragon grand prix. The 33-year-old was able to break through the stiff Ducatti defence of Michael Reuben Rinaldi and Scott Redding to take the Sunday’s win.
This was arguably one of the hardest fought victories of his career as he takes a step further to extend his 6th WorldSuperbike championship. The top three riders(Rea, Rinaldi and Redding) stood-out on the two weekends as they closely competed for the top up to the final stages.
This was Rea’s eighth win of the year giving him a 36 point lead over Redding who comes in second in the overall standings.
Following Scott Redding’s success on his superpole race, the 27-year-old began race 2 at the pole position but was overwhelmed by Rea in the drag to the first corner a move which appeared to be unorthodox. However, Redding was able to retake the lead at turn 13 forcing his rival to sit up. Rea tried to fight back in his Kawasaki through the first technical parts of the circuit but would later loose it to the Ducattis which were practically faster on the straights.
Jonathan Rea kept the pressure on the Ducattis which eventually payed off on lap 6 when he overtakes Redding agressively early in on the lap which leads to a robust back and forth between the riders through the next few corners.
Their fight through the corners just give Rinaldi a chance, first getting ahead of Rea before going off and overtaking Scott Redding and moving into the lead. Redding eventually recedes behind Rea when approaching the end to the back straight steadily dropping out of the fight.
The battle for victory became an unlikely one between Rinaldi and Rea as Rinaldi tried as hard to keep defence of the top position through three-quarters part of the lap section. Rea tries to overtake at Turn 7 with four laps remaining instead bucked him out of his seat as he ran wide.
However, he was quickly back onto the tail of Rinaldi, with Rea avoiding the same mistake at the same turn a lap later to grab a lead and win he had to work incredibly hard for.
Leon Haslam secured his best WorldSBK result of the season with a confident ride to fourth on the Honda, the Briton helped in part by first Alvaro Bautista and then Chaz Davies both tumbling out of fourth place in separate incidents.
Alex Lowes completed the top five, ahead of a quintet of Yamahas – Michael van der Mark, Toprak Razgatlioglu, Loris Baz, Federico Caricasulo and Garrett Gerloff – between sixth and 10th, the Iwata marque no doubt itching to leave Aragon after two average weekends.
Eugene Laverty was the sole BMW finisher in 11th after problems for Tom Sykes, while Marco Melandri, Xavi Fores, Matteo Ferrari and Roman Ramos picked up the remaining points.
