Kawasaki Racing’s Jonathan Rea dominated a wet second race at the Lauistzring to extend his championship lead to 47 points after teammate Tom Sykes crashed out on the first lap.
The race was delayed by nearly an hour after rain began to fall heavily over the 4.2km German circuit 10 minutes before lights out. When conditions finally cleared, the race was started at reduced length of 16 laps and it was Sykes who took the lead into Turn 1.
However, it was short-lived as Rea pounced at Turn 8. The Yorkshireman tried to fight back on the brakes into Turn 10, but tucked the front-end and slid into the gravel trap. He was able to rejoin and finish 12th but the damage to his championship challenge may be irreparable with just six races to go in 2016.
Rea had already shown his prowess in wet conditions after topping yesterday’s rain-hit FP3 session, and immediately began to check out. Ducati’s Davide Giugliano tried to run with the Irishman, but the Italian crashed out at Turn 9. This allowed Rea to cruise to his third win in Germany
This promoted both Ioda Aprilias into the top three, Lorenzo Savadori leading Alex De Angelis. Savadori will have to wait for his first WorldSBK podium, though, as he fell off at Turn 4 with 10 laps to go.
This gave De Angelis a comfortable lead in second and he maintained it right to the flag to secure his first podium in the Superbike World Championship, with Barni Racing’s Xavi Fores completing the top three for his maiden rostrum.
MV Agusta’s Leon Camier pushed Fores in the latter stages of the 16-lap race, but had to settle for a still excellent fourth ahead of Sylvain Guintoli. Pole man Chaz Davies endured a difficult afternoon and slipped to sixth, with Josh Brookes crossing the line a brilliant seventh for Milwaukee BMW. Michael van der Mark got his smashed up Honda to the line in eighth after a late crash, with Roman Ramos and Nicky Hayden rounding out the top 10.
Luca Scassa was a fine 11th from Sykes, Gianluca Vizziello, who was denied 12th on the line by the Kawasaki rider, Pawel Szkopek and Karel Abraham. Peter Sebestyen was the last of the classified runners, whilst Dominic Schmitter, Saeed Al Sulaiti, Alex Lowes, Markus Reiterberger, Jordi Torres, Ant West all failed to make the finish.
See picture below for full race two results.
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