Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea Takes His First Sprint Race Win Of The Season.

It was perfect racing conditions in Portugal for the World Superbike paddock, Scott Redding claimed his second victory of the 2021 season yesterday for the first race of the weekend. For the Sprint Race Jonathan Rea was on pole with his main rivals Aruba.IT Racing Ducati’s Scott Redding and Pata Yamaha’s Toprak Razgatlioglu along-side him on the front row.

Jonathan Rea, Alex Lowes and Kawasaki Puccetti Racing’s Lucas Mahias chose to use the SC0 rear tyre, with the rest of the field using the SCX rear tyre for the Sprint Race.

It was Scott Redding who entered the first corner in first position but it was Jonathan Rea who came out of the corner with the lead, that didn’t last long as Redding took the lead at turn six. Toprak Razgatlioglu made a brave move and over took both Redding and Rea to take the lead at turn one, Scott fought back but Toprack took the lead again at turn three. With all the swopping of places GRT Yamaha’s Garrett Gerloff was hunting the leading pack in fourth place.

Lucas Mahias and Christophe Ponsson crashed out at turn four. As the riders were on their fourth lap Scott made a mistake and ran wide and dropped to fourth position handing third place to Gerloff and second place to Rea. By lap five Jonathan made the pass on Toprack and was able to make the pass stick and took first position.

Lower down the field Team Goeleven’s Chaz Davies was in a battle with Barni Racing’s Tito Rabat for ninth position, of which Chaz won the battle finishing the race in ninth place, Tito slipped down to finish the race in 12th place. Honda Racing have said to be suffering with electronics problems as Alvaro Bautista finished the race in tenth place and his team-mate Leon Haslam finshed down in 16th position.

BMW Motorrad’s Tom Sykes had a quiet race and finished in seventh place, team-mate Michael Van Der Mark finished in a disappointing 13th place. Kawasaki’s Alex Lowes made up four places from his starting grid position and finished the race in sixth place.

For race two Jonathan Rea is on pole once again with Toprack in second position and the Brit Scott Redding rounding off the front row, race two will take place at 2pm GMT+1.

The top nine following the Tissot Superpole Race, full results:

1. Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK)
2. Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with BRIXX WorldSBK) +0.690s
3. Scott Redding (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) +1.180s
4. Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team) +2.059s
5. Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) +3.583s
6. Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) +3.623s
7. Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) +7.062s
8. Eugene Laverty (RC Squadra Corse) +7.831s
9. Chaz Davies (Team GoEleven) +8.968s

Featured Image: WorldSBK.com