Jonathat Rea Sprints To The Finish Line To Take The Superpole Victory.

It was perfect weather conditions at the Assen circuit for the Superpole race, would we get the same trio battling to take the victory as we saw in yesterday’s race one? Alvaro Bautista topped today’s 15-minute morning warm up session, finishing 0.283s clear of yesterday’s race one winner Jonathan Rea. Toprak Razgatlioglu was on pole position alongside Kawasaki’s Alex Lowes and Jonathan Rea. All riders were running the rear SCX tyre.

Toprak got the holeshot into turn one, followed by Bautista in second place and Alex Lowes was third. Rea passed his team mate at turn eight for third position. Bautista was closing in on Toprak after just one lap, the leading four edged a gap from the rest of the field.

With seven laps to go the leading trio started to drop Alex Lowes, Michael Ruben Rinaldi and Locatelli were dicing for fifth place. Rea looked more settled in third place and started to hunt Bautista for second place.

Bautista took the lead from Toprak on lap six, the move unsettled Toprak allowing Rea to also pass the Turkish rider, Toprak was demoted to third place with three laps to go. On lap eight Rea was hot on the heels of Bautista but the Spaniard was riding defensive, Toprak didn’t look to have enough to fight for the victory.

Rea passed Bautista at turn eight for the lead, whilst team-mate Lowes had to retire again with a mechanical issue.

Bautista tried to fight back but Rea took his 100th victory for Kawasaki, Bautista had to settle for second, Toprak was third, Locatelli was fourth, Lecuona was fifth with Loris Baz in sixth place. Scott Redding finished in 11th place, with team-mate Michael Van der Mark finishing down in 15th place.

Can Rea do the triple at Assen? Race two is at 15.15 (GMT+2).

Featured Images: WSBK.com.