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Aragon WSBK: Redding leads Ducati 1-2 ahead of Rea

Scott Redding led a 1-2 finish for Ducati in the first World Superbike race at Aragon, as Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea lost his championship lead after finishing third.

Race winner Scott Redding, Aruba.it Racing Ducati

Race winner Scott Redding, Aruba.it Racing Ducati

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Rea made a sluggish start from pole to drop to fourth in the opening sequence of corners, but managed to claw back lost positions in no time, passing teammate Alex Lowes into Turn 12 to retake the lead of the race.

Redding settled into third place after repassing Loris Baz, who got the holeshot into Turn 1 but couldn’t sustain his lead beyond a few corners.

As Baz started dropping further down the order, the top three pulled away from the rest of the field, with Rea leading the race by a narrow margin from Lowes and Redding.

On lap 5, Redding ended the status quo by passing Lowes into the penultimate corner, before setting about chasing Rea for the lead.

Moments later, Lowes suffered a massive highside at the exit of Turn 3, and was lucky to avoid being collected by the chasing pack as they navigated their way around the fallen Kawasaki rider.

Despite the severity of the crash, the race was able to continue without any interruption, with Redding chasing Rea hard for the lead.

Two laps later, Redding drew alongside Rea on the start/finish straight, with the British rider able to take advantage of Ducati's extra power to take the lead going into turn 1.

After losing the top spot, Rea sat back behind his title rival, the gap between the two never extending beyond 0.3s as the Kawasaki rider kept up the pressure on the race leader.

With four laps to go, Rea attempted to pounce on Redding into Turn 12, but the Ducati rider managed to hold onto the lead.

Rea himself ran wide at the exit of the corner, allowing Chaz Davies to close the gap and then snatch second place from him at Turn 2 on the following lap.

Once in second, Davies was lapping faster than Redding but couldn’t close the gap enough in the final three laps, the reigning British Superbike champion hanging on to win by 0.3s and claim the championship lead from Rea.

Behind the leading trio, Michael Ruben Rinaldi finished fourth on the Go Eleven Ducati after passing factory Yamaha rider Michael van der Mark with just a lap to run.

Toprak Razgatlioglu was next in sixth on the second of the factory Yamahas, marking a remarkable turnaround for the Japanese manufacturer after its two bikes qualified down in eighth and 11th for the race.

Ten Kate Yamaha man Baz eventually finished seventh ahead of Puccetti Kawasaki’s Xavi Fores and the GRT Yamaha of Federico Caricasulo.

Honda riders were unable to convert their strong qualifying pace into a top five race result, with Leon Haslam finishing 10th and Alvaro Bautista crashing out with six laps to go while running eighth.

BMW endured a difficult race as Eugene Laverty could muster only 16th place, finishing nearly a minute down on Redding, while Tom Sykes retired early on.

Race results:

Cla # Rider Bike Laps Gap
1 45 United Kingdom Scott Redding
Ducati 18
2 7 United Kingdom Chaz Davies
Ducati 18 0.304
3 1 United Kingdom Jonathan Rea
Kawasaki 18 2.123
4 21 Italy Michael Ruben Rinaldi
Ducati 18 7.453
5 60 Netherlands Michael van der Mark
Yamaha 18 8.365
6 54 Turkey Toprak Razgatlioglu
Yamaha 18 18.851
7 76 France Loris Baz
Yamaha 18 20.226
8 12 Spain Xavi Fores
Kawasaki 18 26.971
9 64 Italy Federico Caricasulo
Yamaha 18 27.054
10 91 United Kingdom Leon Haslam
Honda 18 29.283
11 36 Argentina Leandro Mercado
Ducati 18 30.270
12 20 France Sylvain Barrier
Ducati 18 40.070
13 40 Spain Roman Ramos
Kawasaki 18 42.267
14 33 Italy Marco Melandri
Ducati 18 54.075
15 13 Japan Takumi Takahashi
Honda 18 57.737
16 50 Ireland Eugene Laverty
BMW 18 59.805
17 63 Italy Lorenzo Gabellini
Honda 18 1'22.202
77 Chile Maximilian Scheib
Kawasaki 13
19 Spain Alvaro Bautista
Honda 12
31 United States Garrett Gerloff
Yamaha 6
22 United Kingdom Alex Lowes
Kawasaki 4
66 United Kingdom Tom Sykes
BMW 4
23 France Christophe Ponsson
Aprilia 2

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