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Barcelona WSBK: Rea eases to Barcelona Race 1 win

Jonathan Rea extended his World Superbike points advantage with a lights-to-flag victory in the championship's inaugural race at Barcelona.

Jonathan Rea, Kawasaki Racing Team

Jonathan Rea, Kawasaki Racing Team

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

From pole, Kawasaki rider Rea held the lead at the start and proceeded to ease away over the course of the 20-lap contest, beating his nearest title rival Scott Redding by 2.625s.

It means the five-time champion now has 42 points in hand over Ducati man Redding with eight races left in the coronavirus-disrupted 2020 season.

While Rea made good his escape at the head of the field, Redding made a strong start from seventh on the grid to run second on the opening lap, but had to battle the satellite Go Eleven Ducati of Michael Ruben Rinaldi for the first half of the race.

Rinaldi, who took his first WSBK win at Aragon earlier this month, retook second on the second lap but lost out to Redding heading into Turn 1 on the eighth lap.

The Italian rider then proceeded to drop down the field in the closing laps, opening the door for Chaz Davies to bag the final podium spot on the second works Ducati.

Up from 11th on the grid, Davies managed to make steady progress up the field and picked off Rinaldi for the final podium spot with four laps to go.

Michael van der Mark was fourth on the best of the Yamahas, having delayed both himself and his teammate Toprak Razgatlioglu with an aggressive move at the start.

Razgatlioglu could do no better than sixth in the end, also dropping behind the Honda of Alvaro Bautista, while Rinaldi came home seventh.

Completing the top 10 were GRT Yamaha rookie Garrett Gerloff, Alex Lowes on the second works Kawasaki and Leon Haslam's Honda.

WSBK debutant Jonas Folger ran in the top 10 at one stage but eventually had to settle for 12th behind the sole BMW to make the finish, Eugene Laverty.

Tom Sykes was the race's sole non-finisher on the other BMW.

Race results:

Cla # Rider Bike Laps Gap
1 1 United Kingdom Jonathan Rea
Kawasaki 20
2 45 United Kingdom Scott Redding
Ducati 20 2.625
3 7 United Kingdom Chaz Davies
Ducati 20 4.459
4 60 Netherlands Michael van der Mark
Yamaha 20 6.078
5 19 Spain Alvaro Bautista
Honda 20 6.989
6 54 Turkey Toprak Razgatlioglu
Yamaha 20 8.770
7 21 Italy Michael Ruben Rinaldi
Ducati 20 11.676
8 31 United States Garrett Gerloff
Yamaha 20 15.639
9 22 United Kingdom Alex Lowes
Kawasaki 20 18.128
10 91 United Kingdom Leon Haslam
Honda 20 22.344
11 50 Ireland Eugene Laverty
BMW 20 22.460
12 94 Germany Jonas Folger
Yamaha 20 22.934
13 12 Spain Xavi Fores
Kawasaki 20 25.428
14 76 France Loris Baz
Yamaha 20 26.083
15 64 Italy Federico Caricasulo
Yamaha 20 31.880
16 97 Italy Samuele Cavalieri
Ducati 20 37.361
17 87 Italy Lorenzo Zanetti
Ducati 20 40.668
18 20 France Sylvain Barrier
Ducati 20 48.001
19 13 Japan Takumi Takahashi
Honda 20 55.793
20 53 Valentin Debise
Kawasaki 20 1'02.531
66 United Kingdom Tom Sykes
BMW 6

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