Gino Rea took his second Bennetts British Superbike Championship race win of the weekend at Donington Park, the Buildbase Suzuki rider taking Sunday’s second race from Christian Iddon (VisionTrack Ducati) and Lee Jackson (FS-3 Racing).
But the drama continued with championship leader Tarran Mackenzie retiring early and although Jason O’Halloran could only manage eighth on the second McAMS Yamaha, he closed the gap to ten points. Iddon and fourth place finisher Tommy Bridewell also closed in considerably and just 21 points now covers the top four riders with just the final round to go.
Cut from 20 laps to 15 after a heavy rain shower hit the Leicestershire venue, Rea took the lead on the opening lap from Iddon, Mackenzie, Jackson, Bridewell and O’Halloran but Glenn Irwin was up against it having had to start from pit lane.
Next time around and Josh Brookes was the first to fall foul to the conditions crashing heavily down Craner Curves but there was further drama further round the lap with Mackenzie’s McAMS Yamaha cutting out as he exited the Esses, putting him out the race.
At the start of lap four, Rea lead Iddon by just 0.054s with the Ducati man looking to take full advantage of Mackenzie’s demise and cut back his points deficit significantly. The same applied to Bridewell and O’Halloran in fourth and fifth who were also reducing Mackenzie’s points advantage as things stood.
With the sun shining through once more, just half a second covered Rea, Iddon and Jackson after five laps with Bridewell still running in fourth and Peter Hickman now fifth ahead of O’Halloran. Andrew Irwin was up to seventh but Synetiq BMW team-mate Danny Buchan was having a disastrous race and was way back in 22nd.
His race ended shortly afterwards but Irwin relegated O’Halloran to seventh on lap six whilst brother Glenn had worked his way up to the edge of the points after his pitlane start. Meanwhile, O’Halloran lost another place to Ryan Vickers.
Back at the front and Rea continued to lead Iddon and Jackson but the gaps were beginning to stretch out between them and at the start of lap ten, the Suzuki rider’s lead was up to 0.651s with Jackson a further two seconds adrift in third. Bridewell, Hickman and Andrew Irwin continued to circulate in fourth to sixth positions.
The gap between Rea and Iddon remained constant over the next few laps but going into the final lap, Rea had extended it to 1.7s and he duly took his second win of the weekend. But second place and twenty points for Iddon saw him close to within 15 points of Mackenzie at the top of the championship table.
Jackson finished in a comfortable third with Bridewell, like Iddon, taking valuable championship points in fourth whilst Andrew Irwin and Vickers had good rides into fifth and sixth.
Hickman took seventh and although he could only manage eighth, O’Halloran is now just ten points behind Mackenzie heading into the final round. Joe Francis took ninth with Glenn Irwin coming through well for tenth.
