Victoria número 100 para Jonathan Rea en Motorland Aragón y el piloto español Adrián Huertas estrenado pódium en WorldSSP300
The six-time WorldSBK World Champion continues to write history and break records at every race. This Saturday, in the first round of the season Jonathan Rea of the Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK became the first rider in history to achieve one hundred victories in WorldSBK.
The Pirelli Aragon Round started at 9:00 am with the last FP3 practice session where it was very close with Turkish rider Toprak Razgatlioglu (1'49.695) setting the fastest time with British rider Scott Redding just 0.001 off the pace.
The Tissot Superpole
The morning got interesting in the first Tissot Superpole of the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship 2021 for the grid start.
The protagonist was Jonathan Rea, with his Kawasaki ZX-10RR, who beated a new record of the Aragonese track by 3 tenths, at the last moment, recording his best time right at the end of the session (1'48.458). This was his 28th pole position in WorldSBK. Second on the grid was Scott Redding on his Ducati Panigale V4 R (+0.275) and third on the grid was Tom Sykes on his BMW M1000 RR (+0.382).
Spaniard Alvaro Bautista took eighth place on his Honda, Tito Rabat and his Ducati in twelfth place and Isaac Viñales on his Kawasaki ZX-10RR in nineteenth.
The second Superpole of the morning was for the WorldSSP300 category, the best time was for the Brazilian Tom Kawakami (2'06.498) with a very close second time for the Spanish #99 Adrian Huertas (+0.004) and a third position for Unai Orradre (+0.032). Out of the competition was Alejandro Carrión from Madrid due to a fall in Friday's practice.
The last to compete for the Tissot Superpole were the WorldSSP riders. Frenchman J. Cluzel took first place (1'52.937), Finnish rider N.Tuuli was second (+0.288) and third place on the grid went to German Phillipp Oettl (+0.416).
Marc Alcoba started in seventh place, Manuel Gonzalez in twelfth and Maria Herrera was eighteenth on her Yamaha YZF R6.
The races begin.
The second category of WorldSBK has developed in a hectic way, it has been the category with more crashes of the day.
Taccini, Takala, Alcoba, Montella, Pizzoli, Gradinger and Taccini have fallen to the gravel throughout the race. Marc Alcoba also made a mistake that caused him to lose control in turn 14 but luckily he was able to rejoin after the crash. At turn 12 of lap 8, Tuuli, who was in second place, got too close to J.Cluzel and took him out of the race in a crash that left both favorites out of the race.
The South African, Steven Odendaal took the victory after having started in fourth position, Dominique Aegerter was second and Philipp Oettl completed the podium. While Maria Herrera finished twelfth, placing first in the European series.
Jonathan Rea dominated the race and took his hundredth WorldSBK victory at Motorland Aragón.
The Northern Irish rider dominated Race 1 of the Pirelli Aragon Round from start to finish, leading throughout the 18 laps to cross the finish line with a time of 1'50.040, 4 seconds ahead of teammate Alex Lowes. The third to cross the finish line was Toprak Razgatlioglu in a hard final fight that led to some overtaking at the limit between the two.
Álvaro Bautista, after starting tenth and having climbed several places throughout the race, unfortunately on the penultimate lap (17) had a slip in turn 2 and suffered a crash, which otherwise would have placed him in the top six. This unforeseen event leaves him without points in this first classification, requiring more work and effort for tomorrow's race.
The debut of Tito Rabat (Barni Racing Team) has been more unfortunate as his performance has ended a few minutes after the start of the race, he was forced to abandon on the second lap because of a technical problem on his bike. While Isaac Viñales took the thirteenth place in Race 1 of the Pirelli Aragón WorldSBK Round.
Adrian Huertas makes his first podium in Race 1 of World SSP300
The first race of the morning was for Adrian Huertas from Madrid, who rode a spectacular race on his MTM Kawassaki. British rider Tom Booth Amos and Japanese rider Yuta Ukaya completed the podium. They were closely followed by Unai Orradre in fourth place.
Ana Carrasco (Kawasaki Provec WorldSSP300), who started from the fourth row of the grid, fought to catch the leading group. In that attempt, the rider from Murcia set the fastest lap of the race, 2'06.452 with record included, and finished in eleventh place.
Sunday's schedule
After the warm up of World SBK (9:00h.), World SSP (9:25h.) and World SSP300 (9:50h.) will be held the four races that will close the sporting weekend.
At 11:00 h. will be the Tissot Superpole Race, at 12:30 h. the second Supersport race, at 14:00 h. the Superbike race and finally at 15:15 h. the Supersport 300 race that will close the Pirelli Aragón 2021 Round at Motorland Aragón.