Aragon WSBK: Rinaldi gets first win, Redding crashes
Michael Ruben Rinaldi secured his first World Superbike race victory with a dominating performance in the first race of the weekend at Aragon ahead of Jonathan Rea, as Scott Redding crashed out.


Go Eleven Ducati rider Rinaldi, who had never previously finished a WSBK race higher than fourth, seized the lead from poleman Rea at the start of the second lap of 18 before making good his escape at the head of the field.
Kawasaki rider Rea maintained the lead off the line ahead of the Ducatis of Redding and Rinaldi, but it wasn't long before Rinaldi dispatched his works counterpart Redding and began to attack Rea for the lead.
The Italian came close to making a move stick on Rea at the final corner, and after sticking to the inside of the five-time world champion Rinaldi was able to complete the move at Turn 1.
From there, Rinaldi proceeded to pull away by a second after the fifth lap, and by lap 10 his advantage was out to more than four seconds.
He finally crossed the line with 5.8s in hand to deliver Go Eleven's first win in the championship and the first for any satellite Ducati rider since 2012.
Second-placed Rea meanwhile came away with an enhanced 30-point lead at the head of the championship as his nearest rival Redding crashed out of third on lap 8.
Redding was coming under heavy pressure from the Honda of Alvaro Bautista in the fight for the final podium spot when he simply lost the front heading into Turn 4, recording his first DNF of the 2020 season and of his WSBK career.
Bautista was later passed by Redding's works Ducati teammate Chaz Davies for third before crashing himself at Turn 14.
That opened the door for Yamaha man Michael van der Mark to finish fourth ahead of teammate Toprak Razgatlioglu.
Sixth went to Alex Lowes, who ran wide at Turn 1 and dropped to as low as 10th before battling his way back past the Honda of Leon Haslam despite suffering with illness.
Behind Haslam, Eugene Laverty secured his best finish of the year so far on the lead BMW in eighth, ahead of the GRT Yamaha of Federico Caricasulo and the second BMW of Tom Sykes.
In his first-ever WSBK race, MotoE champion Matteo Ferrari took two points for a 14th place finish aboard the Motocorsa Ducati.
Joining Redding and Bautista on the list of retirees were Marco Melandri (Barni Ducati), Pedercini Kawasaki substitute Roman Ramos and Sylvain Barrier (Brixx Ducati).
Race results:
Cla | # | Rider | Bike | Laps | Time |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 21 | |
Ducati | 18 | |
2 | 1 | |
Kawasaki | 18 | 5.888 |
3 | 7 | |
Ducati | 18 | 10.035 |
4 | 60 | |
Yamaha | 18 | 15.965 |
5 | 54 | |
Yamaha | 18 | 19.357 |
6 | 22 | |
Kawasaki | 18 | 24.138 |
7 | 91 | |
Honda | 18 | 24.275 |
8 | 50 | |
BMW | 18 | 24.749 |
9 | 64 | |
Yamaha | 18 | 25.437 |
10 | 66 | |
BMW | 18 | 26.796 |
11 | 31 | |
Yamaha | 18 | 27.354 |
12 | 76 | |
Yamaha | 18 | 28.096 |
13 | 12 | |
Kawasaki | 18 | 33.131 |
14 | 71 | |
Ducati | 18 | 44.847 |
15 | 13 | |
Honda | 18 | 59.529 |
16 | 77 | |
Kawasaki | 15 | 3 laps |
19 | |
Honda | 14 | 4 laps | |
40 | |
Kawasaki | 14 | 4 laps | |
45 | |
Ducati | 7 | 11 laps | |
33 | |
Ducati | 6 | 12 laps | |
20 | |
Ducati | 0 | ||
View full results |

Aragon WSBK: Rea breaks lap record to claim pole
Aragon WSBK: Redding defeats Rea for Superpole race win

Latest news
Every driver racing in the 2023 Bathurst 12 Hour
The full entry list for the 2023 Bathurst 12 Hour, including 84 drivers from around the world, has been unveiled.
UPDATED: Auer suffers back injury in Rolex 24 practice shunt
Mercedes driver Lucas Auer has suffered a back injury following a violent crash in opening practice for this weekend's Rolex 24 at Daytona.
Team 18 explains Gen3 collaboration
Team 18 has outlined its recent collaboration with rival Supercars teams as they look to complete their frantic Gen3 builds.
Rolex 24: Porsche leads Acura in night practice at Daytona
Matt Campbell put the #7 Penske Porsche Motorsports 963 on top in third practice for the Rolex 24 Hours, just 0.172sec ahead of Filipe Albuquerque in the Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-06.
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.