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Qatar WSBK: Rea wins despite Davies charge

World Superbike champion Jonathan Rea resisted a late charge from Chaz Davies in Qatar race one to secure his 14th win of the season and the manufacturers’ title for Kawasaki.

Jonathan Rea, Kawasaki Racing Team looking down at his bike

Jonathan Rea, Kawasaki Racing Team looking down at his bike

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

The Kawasaki rider grabbed the holeshot from pole position, and was never removed from the lead for the entire 17 laps despite a moment late on allowing Davies to mount pressure on him.

Rea led Yamaha rider Lowes, GRT’s Sandro Cortese and Davies on the opening lap, with Tom Sykes dropping to fourth after running too into Turn 1 having briefly held second.

The BMW rider’s race would last just 15 more corners, as he would run into the back of Leon Haslam’s Kawasaki at Turn 1 at the start of lap two.

Rea and Lowes quickly broke away from the chasing Cortese and Davies, with the Ducati rider seizing third from the GRT Yamaha rider at Turn 7 on the sixth tour.

The 2020 KRT teammates ran line astern for half the race, with the gap between Lowes and Rea hovering around the three-tenth mark.

Rea began to open his advantage out slightly to half a second by lap 10, while Davies wiped time out of Lowes over the next few tours.

Davies moved ahead of Lowes at the final corner to begin the chase on Rea with five laps to go, and was thrown a chance when the Kawasaki rider had a moment through Turn 8 and ran wide at the corner after as a result.

This allowed Davies to close to within eight tenths of the lead, though Rea regrouped and soon had the gap back out to over a second to ease to the chequered flag to wrap up Kawasaki’s fifth-successive manufacturers’ championship.

Davies recovery from 12th on the grid concluded with runner-up spot to Rea, while Lowes’s hopes of claiming third in the standings took a step forward after he held third and Yamaha teammate Michael van der Mark was pipped to sixth by Haslam.

Alvaro Bautista completed the top four on the second works Ducati, while Loris Baz took the chequered flag in seventh on the Ten Kate Yamaha ahead of Markus Reiterberger (BMW), Go Eleven’s Eugene Laverty and Honda’s Leon Camier.

Toprak Razgatlioglu was a factor in the battle for fifth with Haslam, van der Mark and Baz for much of the race, but the Puccetti rider ended up 11th after running off track at Turn 6 in the latter stages.

Leandro Mercado was forced to retire due to a mechanical issue with his Orelac Kawasaki, while Pedercini’s Jordi Torres didn’t even make the start after crashing at Turn 1 on the warm-up lap.

Race results

Cla # Rider Bike Laps Time Gap
1 1 United Kingdom Jonathan Rea Kawasaki 17 33'34.518  
2 7 United Kingdom Chaz Davies Ducati 17 33'37.250 02.732
3 22 United Kingdom Alex Lowes Yamaha 17 33'39.941 05.423
4 19 Spain Alvaro Bautista Ducati 17 33'42.561 08.043
5 91 United Kingdom Leon Haslam Kawasaki 17 33'52.238 17.720
6 60 Netherlands Michael van der Mark Yamaha 17 33'52.256 17.738
7 76 France Loris Baz Yamaha 17 33'52.694 18.176
8 28 Germany Markus Reiterberger BMW 17 33'54.997 20.479
9 50 Ireland Eugene Laverty Ducati 17 33'59.018 24.500
10 2 United Kingdom Leon Camier Honda 17 34'03.838 29.320
11 54 Turkey Toprak Razgatlioglu Kawasaki 17 34'07.684 33.166
12 33 Italy Marco Melandri Yamaha 17 34'09.191 34.673
13 21 Italy Michael Ruben Rinaldi Ducati 17 34'17.179 42.661
14 23 Japan Ryuichi Kiyonari Honda 17 34'24.538 50.020
15 52 Italy Alessandro Del Bianco Honda 17 34'29.003 54.485
16 9 Switzerland Dominic Schmitter Yamaha 17 34'43.100 01'08.582
  36 Argentina Leandro Mercado Kawasaki 6 11 laps  
  11 Germany Sandro Cortese Yamaha 5 12 laps  
  66 United Kingdom Tom Sykes BMW 1 16 laps  
  81 Spain Jordi Torres Kawasaki 0    

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