Jonathan Rea Battles With Toprak And Bautista To Take The Race One Victory At Assen.

The World Superbike Championship are at the iconic Cathedral of Speed at Assen for round two of the championship. Conditions were perfect at the Dutch circuit, Toprak Razgatlioglu took his second pole position of the season with a blistering lap time of 1:32.934. Joining Toprak on the front row was Kawasaki’s Alex Lowes in second place and Johnathan Rea in third place. Eugene Laverty was declared unfit to ride for the rest of the weekend due to his crash during Free Practice one.

Toprak lead the pack of riders into turn one, followed by Locatelli in second, Lowes got pushed back to fourth place. Rea went around the outside of Locatelli to take second place on the opening lap. Alvaro Bautista was in fifth place, with his team-mate Ruben Rinaldi in sixth place.

The leading duo of Toprak and Rea were pulling away from the rest of the field, there was a gap of half a second to Locatelli in third place. Rea powered his way past Toprak on the start straight with 18 laps remaining, Bautista was on the back wheel of Lowes for fourth place. Scott Redding was down 13th place, the British rider hadn’t progressed further than his grid starting position, Michael Van Der Mark was in 15th place.

With 16 laps to go there was a five-way freight train from Rea to Bautista in fifth, Scott made up some positions and got into tenth place just in front of Garrett Gerloff. Locatelli, Lowes and Bautista were battling for third place, Lowes lost out to Bautista on lap nine, the Spaniard was up to fourth and hunting down third placed man Locatelli.

Bautista got into third place passed Locatelli, had Bautista got enough tyre wear to catch the leading duo of Rea and Toprak? Lowes had to pull in with 10 laps to go with a mechanical issue.

Bautista was right with Rea and Toprak, Toprak tried to pass Rea at turn one but ran wide, he made the move again a lap later and took first place from Rea. With just seven laps to go there was still a three-way battle for first position. Rea overtook Toprak at turn one with six laps to go, Bautista slipped under Toprak to take second place, what had the Turkish rider got left in the tank to get back to first place.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi had to pull in to the pits with just five laps remaining. Bautista made a move on Rea but Rea retook first place back straight away. Rea just looked so confident leading the way, he put the hammer down for the final lap!

Rea crossed the finish line in first place for his 16th race victory at Assen, Bautista was second and Toprak had to settle for third place, Locatelli held onto fourth place, Honda’s Lecuona finished in fifth place, Redding finished in ninth place just ahead of Bassani in tenth place.

Rea now leads the championship by just two points from Bautista, what will the Sprint race have instore for us tomorrow morning at 11.00 (GMT+2).

Featured Images: WSBK.com.