Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea stormed to a dominant World Superbike race two win at a very wet Assen circuit. It was the perfect way to end the weekend for the rider at his team’s home circuit.
Voltcom Suzuki’s Alex Lowes was another rider who had a lot to celebrate – as he clinched his first podium in the class, crossing the finishing line in second, with Ducati’s Davide Giugliano bagging third on the rostrum from Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes.
In the very beginning the rain started to fall on the warm up lap and most of the riders were out on slick tyres, so the start was delayed as many decided to go back to the pits to change to wets. The race was then shortened from twenty to fifteen laps and was declared a wet race.
The rain started to fall heavily just as the bikes started to line up on the grid for the second time. Sykes got the hole-shot followed by Rea and Baz. But soon race one winner Guintoli pushed his way to the front, and ploughed on ahead.
Rea then got the better of Sykes to go into second coming out of the chicane. But after four laps the race was red flagged as conditions became worse, and after an hour the race was re-started for a second time, while Guintoli was leading followed by Rea and Sykes, but their standings didn’t count as it was a complete re-start.
The second race was reduced to ten laps with Sykes taking the initial lead only for Rea to make his move as Sykes made a mistake, which Guintoli also took advantage of. But the Frenchman’s good luck was not to last and binned his Aprilia at Geert Timmer chicane, quickly followed by Red Devils Roma’s Toni Elias. But Guintoli was able to remount his bike to carry on with the race.
Lowes had a great start and was soon on the tail of Giugliano and got the better of Kawasaki’s Loris Baz and the Italian and bravely overtook Aprilia's Marco Melandri as he went wide to go into third, just behind Sykes and Rea.
Lowes was on fire and soon had Sykes in his sights and decided to make a move on the reigning champ coming out of the Timmer chicane on lap six – which worked. Slap bang on the halfway stage Rea had a four second lead over Lowes. But soon Sykes was eaten up by the duelling Roman’s of Melandri and Giugliano to fall back to fifth.
But in the end Rea was too fast and Lowes couldn’t catch up with the Northern Irishman, and as the chequered lag came out had to settle for second, with Giugliano in third. Sykes narrowly missed out on a second podium and ended the day in fourth – with Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam rounding out the top five. Ducati’s Chaz Davies, Guintoli and Althea Racing’s Niccolo Canepa completed the top ten, with Canepa taking the spoils as the leading Evo bike this afternoon.
Voltcom Suzuki’s Eugene Laverty crashed for the second time at the TT circuit but this time at Mandeveen - bringing an abrupt end to his Superbike weekend. BMW Italia’s stand-in rider Leon Camier also succumbed to the wet conditions, and crashed out at Stekkenwal.
Alstare’s Christian Iddon finished the race in twelfth but isn’t able to score any points on his Bimota BB5 because of homologation rules.
