Table of contents:
Scott Redding has scored the sixth victory of the year in the first race of the weekend in Catalonia. A victory passed through water In which Toprak's breakdown abandonment or Rea's fourth place after running away for most of the race was surprising.
With the second and third places of Bassani and Rinaldi, Ducati has achieved its first full on the podium after more than nine years. For their part, the performances of the Spanish drivers were not bad with a ninth place for Bautista, who came to roll fifteenth, and a fourteenth place for Isaac Viñales.
Redding has managed to redeem the last bad result in Superbikes
The first surprise to arrive in the SBK race was the rain, which forced all the drivers to change the settings at first. A fact that marked the beginning of the career and that left out of the competition Garret Gerloff before even starting the race when he fell on the recon lap.
From the front line they came out Tom sykes, which after a very good classification, managed to take the Superpole. Behind him were Toprak Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea, who started third. The exit became complicated as it did not stop raining. It was not a forceful rain but it was constant enough to truncate the start of the pilots.
After the green light, the first to reach the right-hand corner at the end of the straight was the Turk from Yamaha. A fact that he took advantage of to try to escape printing a devilish rhythm. For Sykes was not the same since a bad start, in which he did not stop skidding until the end of the straight, left him without options for the fight on the podium, reaching the tenth position.
For his part, Rea lost up to five positions in the first corners, a fact that he solved before finishing the first lap. After compiling himself and taking second place, accelerated his pace until they catch Toprak and face a first fight for the head of the race. The spike between the top two finishers of the SBK championship was maximum, fighting and passing repeatedly until Rea managed to escape.
The surprise in the third place was given by Axel Bassani, who after a few laps managed to get third with his Ducati and fight at times with Toprak for second position. While this was going on, the other title contender, Scott Redding, was in a group of five battling far behind the head of the race for a spot in 10th.
Fourth rolled Rinaldi fighting with Var Der Mark in a fight that did not stop until the Italian was able to open a small gap between the two. For their part, the Spaniards Álvaro Bautista and Isaac Viñales rolled in these first bars of the race in position 12 and 15 respectively.
In the middle of the race, it seemed that the two and a half seconds advantage that Rea had over the Turk from Yamaha and the Italian from Ducati would be enough to prevail, however the overexertion in their tires ended up diminishing him. A moment that took advantage of Toprak to press from behind with the track a little drier, overtaking him and imposing his speed after a few crazy minutes fighting with Bassani.
When everything seemed ready for sentencing, Toprak broke his bike with six laps to go, giving up first place to Italian. For his part, Rea dropped to fourth position while the chasing group managed to catch up with both of them, making the end of the race totally exciting.
The big surprise came from Scott Reading, who managed to climb from tenth position to first as the track dried up and did not give up. The podium was completed by Bassani and Rinaldi, giving away the first full of Ducati motorcycles on the podium since 2012.
For their part, the Spanish ended up closing a good performance with Álvaro Bautista in the ninth position while Isaac Viñales managed to go back to fourteen. A crazy race in which water and breakdowns have changed the fate of events, pushing even more the SBK World Championship.
