WorldSBK Catalunya Race 1: Scott Redding takes sensational win in Ducati 1-2-3

Scott Redding won an incredible Ducati 1-2-3 in Catalunya.

Scott Redding took an unbelievable victory at Catalunya after being pushed down the order in the opening lap, no only that but the youngest rider on the grid Axel Bassani took his first podium, and Toprak Razgatlioglu suffered a DNF AND Rea retook the championship lead! WorldSBK is so unbelievably unpredictable this year it’s sublime.

Yamaha ran a special livery today and suffered not one but two DNF’s with title leader Toprak Razgatlioglu’s bike breaking down and slowing down to a stop and Garrett Gerloff crashing on the sighting lap, but today was Ducati’s day taking an unbelievable 1-2-3, something you would never have expected judging from the opening laps with Scott Redding being pushed way down the order and Toprak opening up a huge lead of 0.8 seconds in the first two corners racing in the tricky conditions, not only that but Jonathan Rea was down to P8 in the opening corners before making it back up to P2 in lap one.

Eventually Rea would get past Toprak and lead the race, putting three seconds between himself and the Turkish rider, feeding the Yamaha rider to an unbelievable Axel Bassani who seemed to come from nowhere to overtake Rinaldi and then Razgatlioglu, Toprak being Toprak there was absolutely no way he was going to let Bassani go without a fight and would re-overtake Bassani with the pair swapping places with a huge battle for P2, Toprak eventually winning and catching up to Rea with some very late pace to overtake for the race lead.

It was a case of doing a swap with Rea now falling into the jaws of MotoCorsa rider Bassani who overtook Rea with ease to inherit a strong P2 for the rookie rider, the drama wouldn’t stop here though despite Rea maybe believing that the race was over and done for with Toprak in the lead, Rea’s fortune would change for the better and Toprak would pull over with a mechanical issue, eventually coming to a stop with a DNF handing Rea the title lead by six points!

This would gift the 22-year-old Axel Bassani a confidence-boosting race lead running around at the front of the race on the independent bike before Scott Redding appeared from seemingly nowhere to swipe the race win from the grasp of Bassani who would eventually come home in P2 behind Scott Redding who won the race with Michael Ruben Rinaldi coming in third with a Ducati 1-2-3.

Jonathan Rea came home in fourth place after a battle with Michael van der Mark who’s tyres would drop in the latter stage of the race to stop him from contesting any more for the podium but he won’t be too mad with a top 5 result ahead of Alex Lowes and Leon Haslam.

Andrea Locatelli had a tough race coming home in P12, the Yamaha rider not having too much experience of riding in the wet on a Superbike, experience and points gained for the youngster who has been confirmed to stay with Yamaha until 2023.

Full results – 

Featured image – Ducati