WorldSBK Navarra Race 1: Scott Redding wins Navarra debut

A strong Scott Redding won the first WorldSBK race at Navarra.

Scott Redding marched his way to victory at Navarra leading Jonathan Rea over the line by a strong 2.5 seconds following from some errors and issues from Rea who has struggled to get to grips with his machine here at Navarra.

The race began with Scott Redding in the lead briefly before Jonathan Rea was able to muscle his way past and put in a strong 0.5 seconds between him and Redding, from then on for Redding it was a case of being careful and waiting around knowing he had more in the tank, he followed for six laps analysing Rea and finding his weaknesses, eventually striking on lap six to take the lead which he would never relinquish for the rest of the race. For Rea it was a race of survival coming home in second place, he suffered a big front end moment very nearly crashing before picking his bike up and saving it, having another major moment later on into the race, thankfully for him he still had the pace to stay well ahead of Razgatlioglu in third.

Razgatlioglu had a very strong race given he started in P8 and had many issues with the bumpy track surface, missing his braking markers and going wide at times. Despite this he made his way up to P4 in lap one before disposing of his very quick teammate Andrea Locatelli to finish in third place, Locatelli stayed with his teammate taking yet another really respectable fourth place ahead of Alex Lowes and Tom Sykes. Sykes was able to beat his teammate proving a point to BMW that despite losing his ride he is still fast and even faster than his teammate.

We had a pretty impressive battle for the fastest independent rider with Axel Bassani going toe to toe with Garrett Gerloff, the Italian on the Ducati eventually getting the better of the Yamaha of Gerloff with the duo placing in P8 and P9, Bassani once again beating Michael Ruben Rinaldi in 10th.

Full results – 

Featured image – Ducati