WorldSBK Estoril Race 1: Scott Redding victorious in Portugal

Scott Redding wins in Portugal to close in on Rea for the championship.

Scott Redding took a fantastic win in Estoril to close down Rea’s lead down to just 8 points, Redding was forced to hold off an incredibly strong Toprak Razgatlioglu who applied the pressure throughout the race trying to force Redding into a mistake, Toprak forgot who he was dealing with given how mentally and physically strong Redding is these days, he did not crack or fall for any of the Turkish tricks and would arrive victorious over the Turkish rider.

In third place was Jonathan Rea who had to use up a lot of his tyre early into the race to get past Michael Ruben Rinaldi before he could attack for the second podium spot. Eventually, Rea would settle for a strong haul of 16 points knowing he has two races more tomorrow to open up his championship lead once again after Redding cut it down. Garrett Gerloff took an incredibly strong fourth-place finish as the top independent rider, he put in a very strong move on Michael Ruben Rinaldi to take fourth place and was able to make it stick with Rinaldi eventually finishing in 5th place ahead of Chaz Davies in sixth.

A grid of 4 BMW’s and once again it’s Michael van der Mark who proves his worth in P7 as the fastest of them all, a very strong race for the Dutchman who moved from Yamaha last year to the German factory, the next best BMW was Tom Sykes way down in P14 ahead of Folger in P16 and Laverty in P16 who suffered a crash, a solid start for the Flying Dutchman who placed ahead of Alvaro Bautista.

Rounding off the top 10 were two rookies namely Tito Rabat and Andrea Locatelli, Rabat has suffered a few crashes and technical issues in the season-opening races so will be incredibly happy with this result of P9 ahead of the strong Supersport champion with Axel Bassani in P11 as the youngest rider on the grid.

Full Results –