Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea took his sixth straight WorldSBK Championship as Estoril with fourth place in the opening feature race today.
Rea only had to finish in 13th place or higher to claim the title but challenger Scott Redding retired from the race when his Panigale V4 broke down in the early laps.
Rea was not content to just score enough points and set about going from 15th to second in only nine laps.
Razgatlioglu was already 3.474 seconds ahead after ten laps and would win by just over three seconds, for his second Yamaha victory of the season.
After 12 Rea had lost his second place to Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) and a slip-up under braking allowed Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yamaha) to get back into third, until Rea re-passed, with Davies having made a small gap up ahead and running out a confident second.
Gerloff got ahead again in search of another rookie season podium, and he eased out ahead of the number 1 Kawasaki to finish third - leaving Rea a lonely fourth but the World Champion yet again.
Alvaro Bautista (HRC Honda), Leon Haslam (HRC Honda) and Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team) had a fight well behind the leading four, until Bautista fell out of contention. Haslam won that war to finish fifth.
The Lowes and Haslam fight was joined by a squall of riders for a while with only Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Team GoEleven Ducati) staying with them for seventh, and Xavi Fores (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing), Loris Baz (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha) and Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) completing the top ten.
