Davies sees off Rea for Aragon victory

Click here for full World Superbike race two results from Aragon

Chaz Davies has kept up his outstanding record at Aragon by taking victory in race two having edged out World Superbike championship leader Jonathan Rea in a frantic race.

Starting from the reverse grid for race two alongside Rea and Barni Ducati’s Xavi Fores, the Aruba.it Racing Ducati rider was the slower of the trio to carve his way up the order but produced a potent race pace to reel in the early breakaway trio of his fellow race one rostrum finishers and teammate Marco Melandri.

After Fores crashed out from the lead at the final corner on lap 7, Davies began to make his move at midrace distance by darting up the inside of Melandri for second place at Turn 4 on lap 11.

Two laps later he began tussling with race one winner Rea for the lead, with both trading hard but fair overtakes, before Davies made a decisive move to block pass the defending World Superbike champion on lap 13.

Davies looked to get away at the front but both Rea and Melandri stuck with the Welsh rider heading into the final lap. Melandri suffered a mistake in the first sector which dropped him off of the front two before Rea suffered an uncharacteristic error running wide on the exit of Turn 12.

The Kawasaki rider’s mistake allowed Davies to escape down the long back straight to take a vital victory to close the points gap to Rea in the 2018 World Superbike championship.

With Rea and Melandri completing the podium, the Pata Yamaha duo of Alex Lowes and Michael van der Mark produced a monumental tussle for fourth place after reeling in Aruba.it Racing Ducati junior rider Michael Ruben Rinaldi. Lowes got the better of his teammate by take fourth place by 0.4s but both riders finished over 10 seconds off race winner Davies.

Tom Sykes got the better of Rinaldi on the final lap to take a disappointing sixth place for Kawasaki while Jordi Torres narrowly missed out on catching the Ducati rider in eighth place for MV Agusta.

Puccetti Kawasaki’s Toprak Razgatlioglu claimed an impressive ninth place ahead of Milwaukee Aprilia’s Lorenzo Savadori and Team GoEleven Kawasaki’s Roman Ramos.

Jake Gagne led the Red Bull Honda charge in 12^th place with teammate Leon Camier out injured after his race one crash at Aragon as Leandro Mercado (Orelac Racing VerdNatura Kawasaki), PJ Jacobsen (TripleM Honda) and Loris Baz (Althea BMW) rounded out the points places.