Rea takes sprint win after oil causes crash chaos, Sykes loses second

Donington Park WorldSBK - Superpole Race Results

Jonathan Rea has extended his lead in the World Superbike Championship standings after finding himself in the right place at the right time in a truncated race when engine blow for Peter Hickman began a chain reaction of crash chaos behind him, including his team-mate Tom Sykes.

Rea was holding a slim lead over Sykes in fast and frantic 10 lap battle when he red flag was shown for an accident involving four bikes at the tail of the field, with Sandro Cortese, Leandro Mercado, Alessandro Delbianco and Ryuichi Kiyonari all crashing off at the Melbourne Loop after being caught out by the oil dropped by Hickman’s expiring BMW.

However, worse was to follow for BMW when Sykes – running second at the time of the stoppage – folded the front of the S1000RR on the cool down lap as he was touring back to the paddock.

With the bike flipping through the gravel, promoting marshals to scatter out of the way, since Sykes could not return to the pit-lane on his machine, he was subsequently removed from the results and loses his second place finish.

A double whammy of a disappointment for BMW, Sykes had looked poised to re-attack Rea for victory having led over the first four laps from pole position before ceding to the Kawasaki man when the Ulsterman made a lose but fair pass at the Chicane.

However, despite failing to shake the advances of Sykes, who in turn had Toprak Razgatlioglu pressuring him, the red flag would come just at the right time for Rea to secure his second win of the weekend.

With Sykes eliminated, Razgatlioglu notched up a fourth podium in as many events while Leon Haslam added to Kawasaki’s joy by making it a ZX-10RR 1-2-3, one that sees it continue its in-roads into Ducati in the manufacturers’ standings.

Bouncing back from his crash in race one, erstwhile championship leader Alvaro Bautista was coming onto the cusp of the lead fight before the race was halted, the Spaniard enjoying a more positive day but slipping now to 15 points behind Rea overall.

Loris Baz again flew the flag for Yamaha in fourth on the Ten Kate Racing machine, ahead of Alex Lowes on the factory Pata Yamaha, Ducati’s Chaz Davies and Michael van der Mark, who will no doubt be relieved to have cleared the pack earlier having started behind all the riders that crashed.

With only 11 riders classified, Jordi Torres, Marco Melandri and Michael Ruben Rinaldi completed the results.