Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty stormed to victory in the final World Superbike race at Portimao this afternoon, making up for his earlier run of bad luck which saw him retiring from race one with a blown engine, thought to be a dropped valve..
But there were no mistakes in race two for the Irishman as he led from the start, and proved unbeatable out on the track. He made the most of his good start, and dominated from turn one on the opening lap. Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea was never far behind and kept up with Laverty’s pace, up until lap eleven when the Aprilia started to pull away from the Honda.
Rea was never able to close the gap on Laverty again, and then found himself in a battle with Laverty’s team-mate, Sylvain Guintoli as Rea's problems with electronics when his rear tyre wears again reared their ugly head.
The Frenchman did find himself three seconds behind Rea and Laverty, but managed to creep up them, and with five laps remaining Guintoli made his move on Rea and went into second place after an overtaking manoeuvre on the straight. Rea tried to challenge for the second spot on the podium, but Leicestershire based Guintoli had a one second lead over the Isle of Man resident when he went over the finishing line.
Kawasaki’s Loris Baz had a consistent race and finished in fourth place. He was never really in contention for a podium finish, and was ten seconds behind Rea who ended the race in third. GoldBet BMW’s Chaz Davies finished in fifth, after battling his way from seventh. The Welshman was in a battle with Ducati Alstare's Carlos Checa, with the former champion getting the better of the BMW, in the final stages of the race, but on lap twenty Davies made his move and out-braked the former champion going into turn one to clinch that coveted fifth spot.
GoldBet BMW’s Marco Melandri could not emulate his winning form that he showed in race one. Tyre issues saw the former MotoGP rider fade into the distance, after initially getting a good start, and after lap one was flying high in third place.
But on lap six tyre-wear was causing problems for the Italian, as Guintoli overtook him to take third spot, quickly followed by Baz, Checa, Fixi Crescent Suzuki’s Jules Cluzel and Ducati Alstare’s Ayrton Badovini. On the final lap Melandri found himself in a battle for tenth with Red Devils Roma rider Michel Fabrizio, but on the final corner lost two places to Fabrizio and M-R Racing’s Max Neukirchner.
Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes crashed on his sighting lap and had to start the race from pit lane. At first things were obviously not right for the Huddersfield lad and he went back into the pits, only to return out on track and then went back to the garage once again.
The Brit was not going to give up and even though he was by now seven laps down on the rest of the grid decided to tackle the race once again. It was not all doom and gloom for the Kawasaki man, as he ended up clocking a new lap record of 1’42.475, smashing the previous record set by Max Biaggi back in 2010. But still ended up finishing in seventeeth.
Sykes was not the only Brit who experienced problems; Fixi Crescent Suzuki’s Leon Camier was making the most of a bad start, and after finding himself in fourteenth on lap one clawed his way up to eighth. But on lap eleven the Englishman experienced a technical problem coming out of the straight, and the rider never made it back out on to the track again.
Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam was due to start the race, but found the pain in his injured leg too much and made the decision to sit out race two.
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