WorldSBK Donington Park Superpole Race Results | Rea rises in the Donington damp

Jonathan Rea has extended his lead in the 2021 WorldSBK Championship standings with a confident Superpole Race win in changeable conditions at Donington Park.

With intermittent rain leaving the circuit damp but drying as the riders headed to the grid, there were varying tyre choices up and down the grid for the ten lap sprint.

However, with the sun breaking through just as the lights went green, it was those who chose intermediate rubber that would come to the fore with Rea easing out front from turn one and multiplying his advantage to the chequered flag.

He might have faced opposition for the win from the frisky looking Alex Lowes, who forced his Kawasaki ZX-10RR up to second on the opening lap and immediately set about putting pressure on his team-mate out front.

However, his chances of a good result would be scuppered when he lost the rear of his bike at the Old Hairpin on lap two, leaving Rea to coast home to a 2.5secs win.

With the Ulsterman away and gone, attention was focused on the fight for second with Michael van der Mark holding down the position for much of the race before he was usurped by BMW team-mate Tom Sykes at Goddards on lap six.

With the experienced Briton holding position to the end and van der Mark holding on behind him, the 2-3 result marks BMW’s first WorldSBK podium since Magny-Cours in 2019 and its first double podium since Nurburgring 2013.

Leon Haslam collected his and Honda’s best finish of the season with a run to fourth place, the British rider holding off top Yamaha man Garrett Gerloff in fifth place.

Toprak Razgatlioglu - a winner from 13th on the grid in race one - couldn’t make the same gains over the shorter distance in the iffy conditions but still improved his starting position for Race 2 with a run to sixth place.

Lucas Mahias scored his best finish of the season in seventh on the Puccetti Kawasaki with Chaz Davies and Andrea Locatelli rounding out the points’ paying positions in eighth and ninth.

Another desperate race for the factory Ducati team, Michael Ruben Rinaldi was outside the points in tenth after choosing a wet front, while Scott Redding fared even worse with his erroneous choice of full wets on his Panigale V4 R, the Briton quickly dropping to the back of the field to finish last more than a minute adrift of the front.

2021 WorldSBK Donington Park | Superpole Race RESULTS