Rea resists late error pressure to win, first Honda podium since 2016

2020 WorldSBK Aragon - Race Results (2)

Jonathan Rea has opened up a ten point lead in the 2020 WorldSBK Championship after securing his second win of the day at Motorland Aragon, despite a late error that briefly saw him lose the lead.

The five-time WorldSBK Champion looked to be cruising to a seventh win of the season comfortably clear of the opposition when he ran wide on the exit of the long, fast final left-hander coming onto the home straight with five laps remaining.

That provided a sniff of an opportunity for Chaz Davies - who had been trailing 1.5s behind - to pounce for the lead into Turn 1.

Undeterred Rea fought straight back, the pair going bar-to-bar through the opening turns of the lap before the Kawasaki rider nudged ahead. 

Getting straight back on it through the technical middle sector where the ZX-10RR has the edge over the Panigale V4 R, Rea had successfully eked out an advantage again by the time they reached the back straight where the Ducati is quickest.

Despite Davies’ best efforts he couldn’t force Rea into another error, the lucky Brit holding it together for a definitive second win of the day, one that combined with Scott Redding’s distant fourth place gives him a 10-point advantage at the midway stage in the season.

In third, Alvaro Bautista earned Honda its maiden WorldSBK podium with the new CBR1000RR-R, which in turn marks the firm’s first rostrum visit since 2016 (116 races to be exact) when Michael van der Mark finished second at Magny-Cours. 

A genuinely strong performance by Bautista, he made the most of his second row start to stay with the podium contenders before pouncing on both Michael van der Mark and Redding to climb into third, the Spaniard finishing only 3.5s off the win at the flag.

Redding ran second early on but having failed to get the better of Rea at the start, instead found himself fighting a rearguard action as he was forced to settle for fourth.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi completed another strong weekend in fifth place, passing sixth place van der Mark during the second-half of the race.

They in turn were well clear of a thrilling fight for seventh place that involved several riders and led to numerous changes of position before Leon Haslam prevailed, ahead of Toprak Razgatlioglu, Alex Lowes, Garrett Gerloff, Xavi Fores and Tom Sykes, the sextet separated by just two seconds at the line. 

Federico Caricasulo followed up in a distant 13th from Eugene Laverty in 14th, with Max Scheib completing the points’ paying positions.

Elsewhere, Loris Baz ended his weekend with a crash, while Leandro Mercado failed to start as a consequence of his collision with Sykes in the Superpole Race.