WorldSBK Teruel Race 2 Results: Rea slugs it out to win thriller

Jonathan Rea notched up one of the hardest fought victories of his WorldSBK career by prevailing in a thrilling exchange at Motorland Aragon between himself, Scott Redding and Michael Ruben Rinaldi.

The Ulsterman came up against a staunch Ducati defence, first from Redding and then from an inspired Rinaldi, before finally breaking through with just three laps from the flag to secure a critical WorldSBK win with only three rounds to go.

Having been defeated by Redding in the Superpole Race, Rea quickly pounced on the Ducati man off the line into Turn 1 to take the lead, but the ex-MotoGP rider would go and catch his rival unawares at Turn 13 to grab the advantage back.

What followed was another to-and-fro as the Kawasaki swarmed over the back of the Ducati through the technical section of the lap, only to lose ground down the long back straight.

Nonetheless, Rea hit back on lap six with an aggressive pass early on in the lap, prompting Redding to respond similarly forcefully. However, their jostling simply allowed the close-following Rinaldi to get involved, first getting the better of Rea before overtaking Redding for the lead.

More crucially, before the lap was over Rea had managed to finally get past Redding into the final corner, a critical move that would ultimately demote the Ducati man out of the lead fight.

Instead, Rinaldi took up the fight against Rea’s attentions and belied his experience with a superb, fault-free performance for several laps. However, after Rea got away with an out-of-the-seat moment when he attempted to overtake with four laps remaining, he’d make no mistake on the following exchange to snatch the lead close to home.

A seventh win of the year for Rea, it sets him well on course for a sixth consecutive WorldSBK title, now 36 points clear of Redding, who could only follow the impressive Rinaldi home for third.

Leon Haslam scored his best result of the year in fourth for Honda, albeit assisted by Alvaro Bautista and Chaz Davies both crashing out of the position in separate incidents.

Alex Lowes completed the top five, ahead of a quintet of Yamahas led by Michael van der Mark, the manufacturer no doubt keen to leave Aragon after a disappointing two weekends of racing for all three of its teams. 

WorldSBK Teruel - Race 2 Results