Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea fended off a spirited challenge from auld enemy Chaz Davies to take victory in the second WorldSBK feature race at Motorland Aragon and reclaim the series lead from Scott Redding.
The reigning champion made an error in the last corner with four laps to go which allowed the Ducati man to briefly take the lead but Rea fought back to take victory with a 1.3s advantage while Alvaro Bautista gave the new Fireblade its first podium using the osft SCX rear Pirelli.
After a masterful opening win yesterday, Redding was only fourth, 5.445 seconds down on Rea, as he changed to the standard SC1 front tyre used by the rest of the front runners..
Lots of passes and changes of fortune led to some great midfield action again as Michael Rinaldi (Team GoEleven Ducati) moved himself up to fifth place, clear of the top Yamaha rider Michael van der Mark.
A second good showing for Honda came with Leon Haslam winning a truly epic fight for the top ten places. Leon was seventh and then Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Team), Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team), Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yamaha), Xavi Fores (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) and finally Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) were covered by just over one second across the line. Eugene Laverty took two points for 14th.
Ten Kate Yamaha’s Loris Baz crashed out while Marco Melandri broke down.
In the championship itself, Rea now leads by ten points with a total of 189. Redding is second with 179, Razgatlioglu 124, Davies 120 and van der Mark 110.
Top ten top speeds
1 19 A. BAUTISTA Honda CBR1000RR-R 323,4
2 7 C. DAVIES Ducati Panigale V4 R 322,4
3 21 M. RINALDI Ducati Panigale V4 R 321,4
4 33 M. MELANDRI Ducati Panigale V4 R 320,5
5 22 A. LOWES Kawasaki ZX-10RR 320,5
6 45 S. REDDING Ducati Panigale V4 R 319,5
7 91 L. HASLAM Honda CBR1000RR-R 318,6
8 66 T. SYKES BMW S1000 RR 318,6
9 64 F. CARICASULO Yamaha YZF R1 317,6
10 31 G. GERLOFF Yamaha YZF R1 316,7
17 1 J. REA Kawasaki ZX-10RR 311,2
