WSBK Portimao: Rea wins Superpole race

August 9, 2020 EMR Team

Factory Kawasaki rider Jonathan Rea rides to the second victory of the weekend to close the championship gap to a single point with one race remaining in Portimao.

After a dominating performance in Race 1, Jonathan Rea showed similar performance in Superpole race, winning comfortably ahead of Pata Yamaha’s Toprak Razgatlioglu, who after the first couple of laps could not follow the scorching tempo set by the reigning world champion, eventually finishing the short 10 lap sprint race second, 2.9s behind the winner. Loris Baz fended off late advances of Kawasaki’s Alex Lowes to eventually finish in third, in what was the team’s first podium finish since Magny Course race 1 in 2016. Lowes finished fourth, six tenths behind the podium, while Scott Redding showed some improvement again to finish as the top Ducati in fifth.

Tom Sykes on BMW completed the top 6, ahead of second Pata Yamaha of Michael van der Mark, who could not recover from a bad start and was forced to finish seventh, comfortably ahead of GoEleven Ducati rider Michael Ruben Rinaldi, whose SC0 tyre gamble backfired, so he crossed the line in eighth. Team HRC’s Leon Haslam, American GRT Yamaha rookie Garrett Gerloff and second Team HRC rider Alvaro Bautista all had a battle with Haslam Gerloff and Bautista finishing the race in ninth, tenth and eleventh. Second GRT Yamaha rider Federico Caricasulo completed the top 12.

A 92nd career win from Jonathan Rea means that championship leader Scott Redding has only a 1 point advantage over the Kawasaki rider ahead of race 2.