Sunday’s statistics and form guide for the Aragon #2 Teruel WorldSBK round:
Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Team GOELEVEN) becomes the 78th winner in WorldSBK. He is the 32nd for Ducati and the 11th for Italy. It is Team GOELEVEN’s first victory. It’s also the third consecutive season that there’s two brand new winners.
Rinaldi’s win was also his first podium, and he set his first ever race fastest lap at the same time. This comes from his and the team’s first front row in WorldSBK.
Amongst the stats, Rinaldi becomes one of a select few riders to take their first podium as a victory in WorldSBK. Of those, 10 have been achieved on a Ducati – the most recent being Alvaro Bautista in 2019 at Phillip Island.
Ducati have had two bikes on the podium again in WorldSBK. If they two more 1-2 finishes like Race 1 last week, then it’ll be the first time since 2010 that they’ve achieved this four in a season.
The last time an Italian rider on an Italian bike won back-to-back races was Marco Melandri at Phillip Island in Race 1 and 2 in 2018. The last time it was achieved in Europe was also by Melandri, at Jerez but for Aprilia in Race 1 and 2 2014.
Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) failed to lead a race for the first time at the finish line since Race 1 at Phillip Island this year.
In Tissot Superpole, Rea equalled Troy Bayliss for pole positions: 26 each and in third place in the overall pole rankings.
Bayliss features in the stats a lot today; Rinaldi’s victory brings the #21 back to race winning ways for the first time since Bayliss’ win at Portimao in 2008 in Race 2. He did the double that weekend, also for Ducati.
In Tissot Superpole, Alvaro Bautista (Team HRC) and teammate Leon Haslam made it two Hondas inside the top six after Superpole for the first time since the Nurburgring in 2013. That day, it was Jonathan Rea in fourth and Leon Haslam in fifth.
Eugene Laverty (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) took his best finish of the season with eighth in Race 1 at MotorLand Aragon. He hasn’t had back-to-back top eight finishes since he was sixth in the Tissot Superpole Race and Race 2 at MotorLand Aragon in 2019. Funnily enough, that was on a GOELEVEN Ducati, where they achieved their best results of 2019.
