Scott Redding Takes His Sixth Victory Of The 2021 Season In Barcelona.

BMW’s Tom Sykes was heading the line-up on the front row of the grid for race One, claiming his first Pole Position of the 2021 season, along-side Sykes was Toprak Razgatliolglu and Jonathan Rea. The race was declared a wet race, GRT Yamaha’s Garrett Gerloff crashed on the sighting lap, the American rider touched the white lines at Turn 10.

The tension on the grid was high as the riders lined-up on the grid. Toprak led the pack into Turn One, Tom Sykes had a terrible start and ended back in tenth. Rea was in second place, with Michael Rubin Rinaldi in third. Rea took the lead at the end of lap one, Toprak fought back but Rea managed to hold on to the first place. Scott Redding was in 11th place.

Motocorsa Racing’s Axel Bassani got up-to third place and was on the back wheel of Toprak. Rea managed to put a gap between himself and Toprak, Rea was running the perfect race. Toprak and Bassani were dicing with each other for second place, handing Rea even more of a gap at the front of the field.

There was a battle for eighth place between Locatelli, Sykes and Redding, Scott won the battle and got into eighth place, the Brit was on the charge to fellow country man Leon Haslam who was in seventh. Toprak was pushed back to third place with 13 laps to go, BMW’s Michael Van der Mark was catching the leading trio in fourth place.

At half-race distance Rea was leading second place man by 1.5s, Toprak was back into second place, Redding was up-to sixth place, Scott looked to be more confident in the second half of the race.

On lap 12 Toprak took the lead from Rea at Turn four, Bassani took second place from Rea on lap 13 at Turn One, Rea was lapping slower than fourth, fifth and sixth placed riders, not what the reigning champion needed. On lap 15 disaster for Toprak his motorcycle had a mechanical issue and the Turkish rider had to stop at Turn four.

Rinaldi was in second place, Redding took third place from Rea. With five laps to go Bassani was leading, Scott was on the charge taking second place from his team-mate Rinaldi. Redding took the lead with three laps to go, Rea was battling for fourth place with Van der Mark. Toprak was back in the pits, this was his second DNF of the season that wasn’t the Turkish riders fault.

Scott Redding crossed the finish line, his sixth victory of the season, Bassani in second and Rinaldi in third, Rea clung onto fourth, Van Der Mark was fifth. Pole Position man Sykes finished in eighth place.

Jonathan Rea is back into the lead of the championship by six points from Toprak, Scott is now 53 points adrift from Rea. This had to be Scott’s finest win of his World Superbike career, coming from 11th to win the race, can the Brit do it all again tomorrow in the Sprint Race.

Featured Images: WorldSBK.com, Motosport-Total.com.