WSBK Jerez: Second race win for Redding

August 2, 2020 EMR Team

After finishing second in this morning’s Superpole race, Scott Redding finishes the World Superbike weekend in style with a second feature race win to extend his championship lead.

Scott Redding repeated Saturday’s first main race performance to bag the second win of his WSBK career to complete an almost perfect race weekend. His win today was Ducati’s 360th win in Superbike championship, while Ducati finished in the first two places for the first time since the 2012 season.

There was drama before the race even started, as Pata Yamaha rider Toprak Razgatlioglu fell at turn 6 on the sighting lap, but without any consequences to the rider or the bike. When the race started, it was Jonathan Rea who got the best race start, ahead of Redding and Baz, while fast-starting Razgatlioglu, who started in tenth, climbed into the top 5.

Contrary to race 1, Redding didn’t wait for most of the race but decided to attack Rea at turn 1 at the start of the second lap, quickly putting distance between the first and second position, with the gap exceeding a second and a half by lap 5. The gap extended to 2s before Redding’s teammate Chaz Davies managed to clear struggling Rea and grab the second position, which left Rea fending off advances of the Turkish rider and his Kawasaki teammate Alex Lowes. Razgatlioglu finally managed to get ahead of Rea on lap 8 with the move at turn 6, quickly clearing the Kawasaki duo.

At the front Davies tried to close down his teammate Redding and even managed to close the gap to 1.7s before the rookie managed to respond to get the gap over 2s and securing an untroubled second win of the weekend. Seeing that he could not close the gap, Davies settled for his first podium finish of the season and the 90th of his WSBK career, with Razgatlioglu securing yet another podium finish.

Behind the dominant trio, Kawasaki’s issues continued as the race progressed, as Rea was forced to surrender his fourth position to fast charging Italian Michael Ruben Rinaldi, who managed to secure his best-ever finish in Superbike class and ensuring Ducati occupied three out of top four places, while Alex Lowes put in a late move on his Kawasaki teammate to finish the race in the fifth position, while Rea eventually finished a tough race for him in sixth.

Second Pata Yamaha rider Michael van der Mark put the demons of his yesterday’s technical issue to rest with a seventh-place finish, ahead of best Honda rider Alvaro Bautista, who finished eighth. Marco Melandri put on a charge from the nineteenth position at the start of the race to finish ninth at the end, while American rookie Garrett Gerloff completed the top 10.

Today’s race win means that now Scott Redding leads the championship by 24 points, while racing continues next weekend in Portimao.