Aragon WSBK: Rea beats Davies to win, first podium for Honda

Erstwhile championship leader Scott Redding got the best launch off the line, but Rea muscled his way into the lead at Turn 1 after the Ducati ran slightly wide and immediately built up a small gap.

Michael van der Mark demoted Redding at Turn 12 to third, before a mistake for the Ducati rider at the end of the second tour allowed Alvaro Bautista on the Honda up into the podium places.

Davies worked his way up to fourth ahead of his teammate Redding by lap three, while Rea’s lead over the chasing van der Mark was up to 1.8 seconds.

The Ducati of Davies found its way into third ahead of Bautista on lap four at Turn 13, with the Welshman demoting van der Mark three corners later.

Davies then began his charge on Rea, with the gap fluctuation between 1.2 and 1.7s for much of the next 10 laps.

With six to go, Davies was just 1.2s behind Rea, with the Kawasaki rider outbraking himself at the end of the following tour at the final corner and running off track.

This allowed Davies to power ahead into Turn 1, though Rea launched his ZX-10RR up the inside of the Ducati at Turn 4.

Davies retaliated at the next corner, though Rea got the upper hand on the exit and established a slight half a second lead.

Despite Davies’ best efforts, Rea fended him off to claim his second win of the day and moves 10 points clear of Redding, who was fourth having opted for a different front tyre to the one he ran in the first feature race.

Bautista was the only ride to go for the SCX Pirelli tyre, designed for the 10-lap sprint race, and once through to third was able to keep the leaders in sight.

The Spaniard crossed the line in third to tally up Honda’s first podium with the new Fireblade, having scored its previous best of fourth in the sprint race.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi worked his way up to complete the top five on the Go Eleven Ducati ahead of a fading van der Mark, while Leon Haslam on the sister Honda prevailed in a tight tussle of seventh ahead of Yamaha’s Toprak Razgatlioglu, the Kawasaki of Alex Lowes, GRT’s Garret Gerloff and Puccetti’s Xavi Fores.

The remaining points went to Tom Sykes (BMW), GRT’s Federico Caricasulo, the sister BMW of Eugene Laverty and Pedercini’s Max Schieb.

Loris Baz crashed out at Turn 15 on the fifth lap, while Roman Ramos and Marco Melandri also dropped out of the running. 

Aragon World Superbike: Race 2 results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Gap
1	1	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki
2	7	Chaz Davies	Ducati	1.280
3	19	Alvaro Bautista	Honda	3.599
4	45	Scott Redding	Ducati	5.445
5	21	Michael Ruben Rinaldi	Ducati	6.687
6	60	Michael van der Mark	Yamaha	9.561
7	91	Leon Haslam	Honda	20.911
8	54	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Yamaha	21.248
9	22	Alex Lowes	Kawasaki	21.399
10	31	Garrett Gerloff	Yamaha	21.717
11	12	Xavi Fores	Kawasaki	21.809
12	66	Tom Sykes	BMW	22.012
13	64	Federico Caricasulo	Yamaha	25.244
14	50	Eugene Laverty	BMW	30.088
15	77	Maximilian Scheib	Kawasaki	36.546
16	20	Sylvain Barrier	Ducati	49.074
17	23	Christophe Ponsson	Aprilia	55.511
18	13	Takumi Takahashi	Honda	1'00.754
19	63	Lorenzo Gabellini	Honda	1'35.650
	40	Roman Ramos	Kawasaki
	33	Marco Melandri	Ducati
	76	Loris Baz	Yamaha
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