Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Motorsport prime

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Edition

USA

Magny-Cours WSBK: Redding's win delays Rea's coronation

Scott Redding charged to victory in a wet World Superbike race at the Magny-Cours circuit on Sunday to take the championship fight to the final round of the season at Estoril.

Podium: race winner Scott Redding, Aruba.it Racing Ducati, second place Loris Baz, Ten Kate Racing Yamaha, third place Chaz Davies, ARUBA.IT Racing Ducati

Podium: race winner Scott Redding, Aruba.it Racing Ducati, second place Loris Baz, Ten Kate Racing Yamaha, third place Chaz Davies, ARUBA.IT Racing Ducati

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Having won the opening two races of the weekend at the French venue, Jonathan Rea only needed to finish inside the top three to ensure he headed to the season finale with an unassailable margin of 62 points. 

Rea was in a prime position to achieve that feat, having qualified on pole position with Redding starting outside the front row in fourth.

However, Redding was in a league of his own in the opening stages of the race, passing Michael van der Mark at the Adelaide hairpin on the opening lap before reeling in second-placed Alex Lowes at Turn 1 on the following tour.

On lap 3, Redding lunged up the inside of Rea at the Turn 9 hairpin, forcing the Kawasaki off the racing line and clinching the lead in the process.

Second place should have been enough for Rea to seal the title, but the 33-year-old appeared to struggle for pace on a drying track and ran wide at several corners, allowing first Loris Baz and then Redding’s Ducati teammate Chaz Davies to pass him and demote him to fourth by lap 14.

Rea tried to fight back in the final five laps and brought the deficit to Davies under a second, but a mistake on Turn 1 on the penultimate tour allowed the Ducati rider to open up a gap once again.

Rea closed the gap back again on the final lap, but not sufficiently enough to attempt a move, the two crossing the line just six tenths apart after 21 laps of racing.

With Redding enjoying an untroubled run to the flag since claiming the lead on lap 3, the Ducati rider managed to delay Rea’s title coronation until the Estoril finale.

Rea, however, will still head to Portugal with a sizeable margin of 59 points, with only 62 on offer across the three races.

Between winner Redding and the battling duo of Davies and Rea, Baz finished as the top independent rider in second on the Ten Kate Yamaha, scoring a third consecutive podium finish of the weekend.

Yamaha’s Michael van der Mark finished seven seconds off the lead in fifth, while Michael Ruben Rinaldi - who ran as high as second in the early stages of the race - was sixth on the Go Eleven Ducati.

Lowes eventually finished down in seventh on the second works Kawasaki, ahead of GRT Yamaha’s Garrett Gerloff and the factory M1 of Toprak Razgatlioglu.

Tom Sykes rounded out the top 10 for BMW, while the Hondas of Leon Haslam and Alvaro Bautista scrapped for minor points, finishing 13th and 15th respectively.

Race 2 results:

Cla # Rider Bike Gap
1 45 United Kingdom Scott Redding
Ducati
2 76 France Loris Baz
Yamaha 2.551
3 7 United Kingdom Chaz Davies
Ducati 3.648
4 1 United Kingdom Jonathan Rea
Kawasaki 4.261
5 60 Netherlands Michael van der Mark
Yamaha 7.409
6 21 Italy Michael Ruben Rinaldi
Ducati 16.505
7 22 United Kingdom Alex Lowes
Kawasaki 19.409
8 31 United States Garrett Gerloff
Yamaha 21.612
9 54 Turkey Toprak Razgatlioglu
Yamaha 27.621
10 66 United Kingdom Tom Sykes
BMW 28.079
11 64 Italy Federico Caricasulo
Yamaha 32.422
12 20 France Sylvain Barrier
Ducati 41.498
13 91 United Kingdom Leon Haslam
Honda 42.450
14 50 Ireland Eugene Laverty
BMW 45.588
15 19 Spain Alvaro Bautista
Honda 46.318
16 97 Italy Samuele Cavalieri
Ducati 1'14.050
17 53 Valentin Debise
Kawasaki 1'18.497
18 13 Japan Takumi Takahashi
Honda 1'47.214
12 Spain Xavi Fores
Kawasaki
34 Xavier Pinsach
Kawasaki
36 Argentina Leandro Mercado
Ducati

Be part of Motorsport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Magny-Cours WSBK: Rea closes on title with Superpole win
Next article Rea explains Magny-Cours pace dip that delayed title triumph

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Motorsport prime

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Edition

USA