Drama in Catalunya
What a mixed bag of results for all the teams! Red flags, one-two-three finishes, wet racing, and more
THINGS TOOK OFF TO A GOOD start for the BMW factory team at the circuit de Barcelona-catalunya when tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK team) sliced through the competition to give the M 1000 rr its first pole position. his supreme effort during the final stages of the session meant that toprak razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK) and Jonathan rea (Kawasaki racing team WorldSBK) had to settle for second and third places respectively.
race one was preceded by rain and it kicked up quite the storm on track and in the championship standings as well. rea slipped down to 10th place at the beginning of the race while razgatlioglu battled his way to the front. unfortunately, the turkish rider had to pull off the racetrack while leading the race due to a technical issue. this allowed axel Bassani (Motocorsa racing) to move into the lead. towards the second half of the race, the factory Ducatis found pace as well. Michael ruben rinaldi (aruba.it racing – Ducati) and Scott redding (aruba.it racing – Ducati) came charging through the pack and, during the final stages, redding passed his teammate into second place and then pulled one more over Bassani to claim the lead. redding, Bassani, and rinaldi crossed the finish-line in that order and gave Ducati their first one-two-three finish since assen 2012.
razgatlioglu took the lead into the turn one for the Superpole race, closely followed by rea and redding. Shortly into the race, an incident at turn 11 brought out the red flags and the race was restarted. this time rea managed to get the better of the turkish star and moved into the lead. Meanwhile, alvaro Bautista (team hrc) returned to the podium after a gap of 37 races.
the red flags were out on the second lap of race two as well and the grid had to line up for a restart with the race distance shortened to 19 laps. rinaldi made the most of this opportunity and stormed into the lead, ahead of razgatlioglu and rea. rinaldi and razgatlioglu started pulling away while rea lost momentum. the defending champion was then overtaken by andrea Locatelli (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK), redding, and Bautista. up ahead, razgatlioglu had managed to find a gap and did claim the lead but he was not able to make it stick because rinaldi took it right back. the italian put his head down and raced on to claim another well-deserved victory with razgatlioglu and redding finishing in second and third places respectively.
What this means for the championship is that razgatlioglu is in the lead once again with 399 points, just one more over rea, while redding sits in third with 339 points to his name.