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Aragon WSBK: Redding dominates as Rea and Gerloff clash

Ducati’s Scott Redding claimed a dominant victory in the final race of the World Superbike season opener at Aragon, as Jonathan Rea came to blows with Garrett Gerloff.

Race winner Scott Redding, Aruba.It Racing - Ducati

Race winner Scott Redding, Aruba.It Racing - Ducati

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Having been caught out on wet tyres on a drying track in the superpole race earlier on Saturday, Redding made the right call to start Race 2 on slick tyres, allowing him to claim his sixth victory in WSBK by nearly 10 seconds and prevent Rea from completing a weekend sweep.

Six-time WSBK champion Rea led the field early on from pole position from Kawasaki teammate Alex Lowes but both soon came under pressure from the GRT Yamaha of Garrett Gerloff.

Gerloff dispatched Lowes on the second lap and then set his sights on Rea, but their battle for the lead ended in a disaster.

On lap 4, Gerloff made a late lunge on Rea going into Turn 14 but the Kawasaki rider was caught unaware, causing the two to collide and go straight through the corner. Gerloff fell off his Yamaha seconds after impact while Rea was able to rejoin the track immediately, albeit down in fourth place.

This allowed Michael van der Mark to take the lead on the new BMW M1000RR, having passed Lowes moments before the incident.

However, as the track began to dry, Redding slowly rose to the fore on his slicks-shod Ducati having started eighth on the grid, lapping two seconds quicker than his rivals at one point.

Having moved up to fifth already, Redding made light work of Rea and the Yamaha of Toprak Razgatlioglu, before reeling in Lowes and eventually van der Mark's BMW on the back straight with 13 laps still to run.

Once out in front, there was no catching Redding, the Ducati rider cruising out front on slick tyres as his rivals struggled to keep the pace on intermediate rubber on a drying track.

Behind Redding, a long battle for second place ensued as van der Mark's pace began to fade, and after trading positions multiple times a recovering Rea was able to pass the BMW rider at Turn 13 with three laps to go to finish second, limiting the damage to Redding in the standings.

Lowes also found a way through to make it two Kawasakis on the podium, while Tom Sykes on the second BMW also overtook his teammate right at the end of the race to claim fourth.

Razgatlioglu was unable to keep up with the rest of the group led by Rea and ended up sixth behind van der Mark, while Gerloff was able to remount on his bike on his way to seventh - having been handed a long lap penalty for causing a collision with Rea.

Jonas Folger was classified eighth for BMW's new satellite team Bonovo MGM, as Andrea Locatelli (Yamaha) and Lucas Mahias (Puccetti Kawasaki) completed the top 10.

Race results:

Cla # Rider Bike Gap
1 45 United Kingdom Scott Redding Ducati  
2 1 United Kingdom Jonathan Rea Kawasaki 9.856
3 22 United Kingdom Alex Lowes Kawasaki 10.434
4 66 United Kingdom Tom Sykes BMW 12.094
5 60 Netherlands Michael van der Mark BMW 16.234
6 54 Turkey Toprak Razgatlioglu Yamaha 20.191
7 31 United States Garrett Gerloff Yamaha 20.427
8 94 Germany Jonas Folger BMW 20.587
9 55 Italy Andrea Locatelli Yamaha 25.026
10 44 France Lucas Mahias Kawasaki 28.855
11 19 Spain Alvaro Bautista Honda 35.644
12 3 Japan Kohta Nozane Yamaha 38.275
13 32 Spain Isaac Viñales Kawasaki 41.585
14 47 Italy Axel Bassani Ducati 44.922
15 23 France Christophe Ponsson Yamaha 46.022
16 21 Italy Michael Ruben Rinaldi Ducati 1'08.072
17 50 Ireland Eugene Laverty BMW 1'13.998
18 36 Argentina Leandro Mercado Honda 1'14.859
19 7 United Kingdom Chaz Davies Ducati  
20 84 Belgium Loris Cresson Kawasaki  
21 76 Italy Samuele Cavalieri Kawasaki  
  53 Spain Tito Rabat Ducati  
  91 United Kingdom Leon Haslam Honda  

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Previous article Aragon WSBK: Rea leads Kawasaki 1-2 in damp Superpole race
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