Scott Redding took the Sunday’s victory at Magny-Cours in a wet superbike race making him to be a close contender ti the 2020 superbike championship title with only one round remaining which will be held at Estoril.
Jonathan Rea only managed to finish fourth despite having won the opening two races of the weekend in France, Rea only needed to finish in the top three to extend his unapproachable lead margin of over 62 points. He was in a position to achieve that, as he had taken the pole position as Redding took the second row, starting the race at fourth.
Redding showed his pure performance and talent throughout the race, in the opening stages he was able to pass Michael van der Mark as they approached Adelaide hairpin on the first lap as he later on overtook Alex Lowes who was second at Turn 1 on lap 2. On lap 3, Redding took on the championship leader, Rea from the inside at the Turn 9 hairpin pushing out the Kawasaki from its racing line and taking the lead at the turn.
33-year-old Rea would have settled for the second place to seal the championship title, but he appeared to struggle for speed on the track which was now drying up as he made further errors by running wide through several corners. This gave Loriz Baz the advantage to pass the championship leader as Redding’s teammate at Ducatti, Chaz Davies moments later took his chances to overtake Rea. This saw Rea settle to the fourth position on lap 14, as he tried to fight back in the final five laps as he closed the gap with Davies who was third down to under a second. However, in the penultimate lap Rea made a mistake on Turn 1 which saw Davies widen the gap further.
Rea tried to close the gap once again on the final lap, but it was too late to make a move as Davies crossed the finish line just a sixth of a second ahead of Rea after 21 laps of racing. Redding on the other hand, enjoyed an uninterrupted victory since he took the lead on lap 3 and he was able to delay Rea’s championship victory coronation to the final WSBK round which will take place at Estoril. His lead is still very sizeable having a 59 point gap lead with only 62 points on offer in the last race in portugal.
Loriz Baz finished second on the Ten Kate Yamaha, scoring a third consecutive podium finish of the weekend. Yamaha’s Michael van der Mark finished seven seconds behind Rea and landed him in fifth place, while Team Go Eleven’s Michael Reuben Rinaldi finished sixth despite running as high as second in the opening stages of the race.
Alex Lowes finished seventh on the second works Kawasaki ahead of GRT Yamaha’s Garrett Gerloff and the factory M1 of Toprak Razgatlioglu. Tom Sykes rounded out the top 10 riders on his BMW while the Hondas of Leon Haslam and Alvaro Bautista scrapped for minor points, finishing 13th and 15th respectively.
