WorldSBK | Ducati makes it 1-2-3 in race 1 in Catalunya; Toprak retires; Rea is 4th
Ducati rider Scott Redding won race 1 this Saturday in Catalunya, Spain, for the WorldSBK World Superbike Championship. The British rider made a recovery race on a wet track and led the Ducati trio who finished on the podium.
It was Ducati’s first triple podium since 2012 in the category, with Redding first, Motocorsa Racing satellite rider Axel Bassani second (his first podium in the category in his rookie season), and Michael Ruben Rinaldi third.
Bassani celebrated a lot and said, after the race, that he cried throughout the last lap. He is the youngest rider on the grid at 22 years old.
Tom Sykes (BMW) started from pole position but was ‘swallowed’ by the peloton before the first corner and was not in the top ten. Toprak (Yamaha) took the lead, but for a short time, as Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki) – who lost some positions in the first corner – had a better pace and took the lead.
Rea at some point opened more than 2 seconds of advantage, leaving the fight for the other positions. Who came to fight Toprak was Axel Bassani who, despite being very young, showed great strength and maturity. It was a festival of overtaking between the two until they both managed to reach the leader, who was already starting to show problems.
Halfway through the race, Rea couldn’t hold them both, and dropped to third. At this point, Toprak’s bike had technical problems and he had to retire, leaving the lead of the race to the Motocorsa rookie.
From the middle of the race, both Redding (who got to be 14th and didn’t think it was his day) and Rinaldi started doing very fast laps and overtaking their opponents. It didn’t take long and they reached the six-time champion, not finding it too difficult to overtake him.
Redding managed to overtake Bassani and lead the race, crossing the finish line first, scoring 25 points and reducing his championship deficit to 53 points.
The leader is now Rea who, with Toprak’s abandonment and with the points of fourth place, has a 6 point advantage over the Turkish.
Michael van der Mark (BMW) was fifth, Alex Lowes (Kawasaki) sixth, Leon Haslam (Honda) seventh, Tom Sykes (BMW) eighth and Alvaro Bautista (Honda) ninth.
The championship standings are as follows:
- Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki) – 376 points
- Toprak Razgatlioglu (Yamaha) – 370 points
- Scott Redding (Ducati) – 323 points
- Andrea Locatelli (Yamaha) – 190 points
- Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Ducati) – 188 points
- Alex Lowes (Kawasaki) – 186 points
- Tom Sykes (BMW) – 167 points
- Michael Van Der Mark (BMW) – 165 points
Finally, race 2 and the superpole of the WorldSBK Championship, takes place this Sunday, September 19, in Catalunya, Spain, at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
For more info, access the WorldSBK website.