Unbeaten Rea dominates again
NOT EVEN a red flag and a restart of Sunday’s race two at the Chang circuit in Thailand could stop Kawasaki star Jonathan Rea’s dominance of the World Superbike series, as he pulled off his second double win of the year to remain unbeaten in 2017.
Rea pulled a brilliant start from pole in Saturday’s race one - he’d set a new qualifying lap record earlier in the day - to take the holeshot, with Ducati’s Marco Melandri, Rea’s Kawasaki team-mate Tom Sykes and Melandri’s partner Chaz Davies in hot pursuit.
None of them could match Rea’s pace, as he pulled away at about half a second a lap to win by 6.279 seconds after 20 laps of fierce racing in stifling 36 degree heat.
Davies won the battle for second, finishing less than two seconds in front of the pursuing Sykes. Melandri finished just behind Sykes after a dramatic last-lap shoot-out.
After another brilliant start in Sunday’s race two, Rea scythed through the field from ninth on the reshuffled grid to slot into second behind Melandri’s Ducati by the end of lap one, with Davies, Lowes and Sykes in tow.
The drama continued as Davies lost the front end of the Ducati on lap three, picked up the bike and rejoined, stone last.
On lap four the world champion moved into the lead, only for Lorenzo Savadori’s Aprilia to bring out the red flags a lap later as it suffered a terminal mechanical infarction and went down big time, scattering pieces of itself all over the track. The restart grid was taken on the riders’ positions at the end of lap four, which put Rea on pole; once again, however, Melandri on the leading Ducati had no answer for the world champion, as he powered away over the 16 laps of the restart to win by four seconds. Sykes made it a Kawasaki one-two with a last lap move on Melandri.
Works Yamaha rider Federico Caricasulo took a hard-fought win from Thai wild card Decha Kraisart and Finnish hotshot Niki Tuuli for an all-Yamaha podium in World Supersports.
South African Sheridan Morais, meanwhile, put in a superb ride on the Kallio R6. He qualified 14th, and then fought his way back to finish eighth on the road and seventh on paper after Gino Rea was disqualified for ignoring a ride-through penalty.