WSBK Catalunya: Jonathan Rea wins the inaugural race at Catalunya

It was a race controlled by Rea from the start to the finish, but this didn’t stop chaos behind him.

Jonathan Rea dominated the first race at Catalunya race once again taking his 97th win ahead of Scott Redding. Redding began the race in good spirit, battling with Michael Ruben Rinaldi before dropping the fellow Ducati man off to attack Rea, however, Rea’s pace deemed too good and Redding was forced to stick to second place, losing 5 championship points to Rea.

Chaz Davies joined teammate Scott Redding on the podium after cutting through the field to take third place. Michael van der Mark finished the race in fourth place overall after a chaotic first corner, taking all the risks to take fourth place. Alvaro Bautista finished in fifth place following a scary moment at 190km/h with Rinaldi, touching on the entrance to the straight with Rinaldi eventually falling to seventh place behind Razgatlioglu.

Toprak Razgatlioglu will not be too happy with sixth place, he was mired into turn 1 having chunks taken out of him and losing places, he recovered well to overtake Rinaldi late on in the race.

Rookie Garrett Gerloff had an outstanding race, finishing in eighth place at another new track to him, really showing his true potential ahead of Alex Lowes then Xavier Fores.

Major shout out to Jonas Folger, the Yamaha rider made his debut and took P12.

Full results:

Featured image – www.worldsbk.com