WSBK

Reigning champion Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) secured the pole position for race 2 after closing in on Scott Redding’s championship lead. Rea had fallen behind Ten Kate Racing Yamaha’s Loriz Baz in the onset of the race which was similar to Saturday’s race but it only took two turns to regain the victory and even went further pulling away from the group of riders that was following him. The 33-year old was followed by saturday’s winner scott Redding(Ducatti Aruba IT Racing) and Michael van der Mark (PATA YAMAHA WorldSBK Official Team) came in third. Alvaro Bautista(Honda WSBK Team) came in fourth after a battle from the 7th position. This turned out to be his best position in the season and he will be able to battle for the podium in the Sunday afternoon’s race. Alex lowes ended the session in sixth place on his Toprak Razgatlioglu Yamaha while Michael Reuben Rinaldi (Team GoEleven) followed him closely in the 7th position. Loris Baz ended up 9th taking the 3rd row for Sunday afternoon’s race though he had exhibited promising moves on the first lap but later fell back. There was however an incident that occurred after Tom Sykes(BMW Motorrad WSBK) went off the track around turn 8 and 9 after a fierce battle with Chaz Davies(Aruba IT Racing Ducatti). He made contact with Leandro Mercado (Motocorsa Racing) as he was struggling to get back on track by making speeding Mercado hit him ,Tom Sykes was able to continue with the race after bouncing on the gravel trap as Mercado was taken for medical checkup. This incident is still under investigation.

Saturday was a good day for the Aruba IT Ducatti racing team after getting 1-2 finish in the first WorldSBK race at Aragon. Scott however had started by being third in the first Prosecco DOC Aragon round after passing Loriz Baz around turn 1,who later continued to drop to the bottom. Jonathan Rea also had a rather slow start as he dropped from pole position to fourth but later managed to regain his lost positions after passing his teammate Alex on turn 12 to regain his lead. Alex Lowes later suffered a crash at the exit of turn 3 and found himself lucky as the other riders were able to navigate around the fallen Kawasaki rider. Despite the severity of the crash, the race was able to continue without any interruption. Scott Redding’s teammate, Chaz Davies made a very remarkable improvement after moving from 9th to 2nd and even challenging his teammate through the last laps showing the strength of the Ducatti Paningale V4R around the track. Despite Redding’s win at Aragon, he ended up ranking 8th in the overall classification and the third fastest Ducatti on the track as Chaz finished first and Team GoEleven’s Michael Reuben Rinaldi ranked 2nd. The feeling wasn’t great today but, in the afternoon, when we had Superpole and Race 1, the bike started to feel like my bike and I could use it how I wanted. The rest of the weekend, I’ve struggled a lot. You can see in the lap times I was struggling to go fast, and I really was not enjoying the weekend so far. The team did not give up on me and I didn’t give up on them, we worked together as a good team would, and we put together the package for the race. “This was the first time I was running these lap times in the race, so it was a bit unknown, I didn’t feel super comfortable.” Scott Redding said. “I was worried about tyres and the guys behind me and I wasn’t really focused on my own lap time.” ” I felt good, I felt like I could hold my own and that was the main thing. Going into the race, I felt like we needed to fight for a podium here. When we got off the start behind the Kawasakis I felt like I could win the race and that give me some motivation. I got passed by Jonny, I tried to make a gap but there was no gap coming. I was happy with him behind. I knew I had quite a good pace in the straights, so I didn’t have to always worry about battling.” added the 27-year-old.

MOTUL FIM WorldSBK Free Practice took place in MotorLand Aragon circuit. The Free Practice which holds two rounds(FP1 and FP2) was intense as the riders exhibited close competition trying to get to the top. Chaz Davies lead in the first practice round after setting a record 1m 50.543s making it his eighth win at Aragon with the Ducati Paningale V4-R. Davies ranked sixth in the second practice round but the first round was enough to place him still on top in the practice standings. Davies’ teammate at Ducati, Scott Redding ranked eighth overall after ranking 3rd in the second practice session which was an improvement after finishing 11th in the first practice. The race was very tight having all the five bike manufactures having a very close competition shown by nine riders. Team GoEleven’s Rinaldi finished second overall a tenth of a second away from his teammate davies as the Kawasaki champion Jonathan Rea ranked third in the standings. Rea’s teammate at Ducati Alex Lowes had a successful practice session despite having a crash around turn 14, he ended up ranking 10th overall. Team Honda’s Alvaro Bautista however had a challenging practice session after experiencing a crash and technical issues making him miss the second practice session, although he did out and in laps around the Aragon track. His teammate Leon Haslam ended up ranking 11th. Tom Sykes on his BMW 1000RR ranked fifth in the overall standings . The BMW Motorrad rider who had a successful week after renewing his contract with the team had experienced a technical issue in the first practice session. Eugene Laverty who is his teammate ended up 16th in the session. Kawasaki Junior Racing team’s Garret Gerloff finished the day ranking 12th as his counterpart Federico Caricasulo ranking 14th as Orelac Racing rider Maximilian Scheib seperated the team riders by ranking 13th. Xavi Fores(Kawasaki Pucceti Racing) finished in the 15th place a tenth of a second fastest than Melandri(Barni Racing Team) who ranked 17th. Roman Ramos from OUTDO Kawasaki finished 18th on his return to WSBK. 19th and 20th place was taken by Sylvain Barrier (Brixx Performance) and Leandro Mercado (Motocorsa Racing) respectively.

The 2013 WorldSBK championship title winner will remain with BMW for 2021 WorldSBK season being joined by new signing Michael van der mark in a revised line up. Sykes joined BMW in its factory WSBK return last year from Kawasaki earning four podiums with the all new BMW S1000RR ranking eighth in all the standings. The 2020 WorldSBK championship has only three rounds complete in a revised eight-event schedule, Tom Sykes’ deal extension and van der Mark signing shows that BMW has already prepared for 2021. “Tom has been part of our WorldSBK team from the very start and is an important pillar of this project” said BMW motorsport director Marc Bongers. “We are pleased to be able to continue along the common path in 2021 which we embarked upon with the first tests back in December 2018.” “This gives us continuity, which is very important for the successful development of a project. We have already achieved a lot together, and the goal is now to definitively close the gap to the front-runners.” the director added. “Tom’s extensive knowledge of the BMW S 1000 RR and his input will play a key role in achieving this.” The brit is yet to get his first win with the BMW team having his 50th career pole position at the Phillip island opener. The announcement comes as bad news for 13 time WorldSBK and ex-MotoGP rider Eugene Laverty, who has been dropped from the factory racing squad less than half-way through his current deal.