Aragon WSBK: Redding defeats Rea for Superpole race win

Ducati rider Redding's championship hopes took a blow on Saturday as he crashed out of the first race of the weekend, giving Kawasaki rider Rea a 30-point lead in the standings.

But the reigning British Superbike champion struck back by passing poleman Rea on the opening tour of the 10-lap sprint race with a bold inside move at Turn 15.

Rea briefly retook the lead on the second lap only to lose it almost immediately, and spent the rest of the race in the wheeltracks of Redding.

The gap between the pair was just under a second at the finish, with Redding cutting Rea's championship lead to 27 points ahead of the second full-length race of the weekend.

Some 3.6s behind Ducati stablemate Redding, Saturday winner Michael Ruben Rinaldi enjoyed a quiet run to the final podium spot on the Go Eleven-run Panigale V4 R.

Fourth place was much more hotly contested as Honda man Alvaro Bautista was able to battle his way past Alex Lowes (Kawasaki) at Turn 1 on the eighth lap, and then hold off a late charge by the second works Ducati of Chaz Davies to hang on to the place.

Lowes, still suffering from illness, had to be content with sixth ahead of the best of the Yamaha riders, Toprak Razgatlioglu, who ran fourth early on only to fade later.

Completing the points-scorers were Leon Haslam (Honda) and Tom Sykes (BMW), with Yamaha man Michael van der Mark missing out on a point in 10th place.

Race results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Laps	Gap
1	45	Scott Redding	Ducati	10
2	1	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki	10	0.970
3	21	Michael Ruben Rinaldi	Ducati	10	3.685
4	19	Alvaro Bautista	Honda	10	4.833
5	7	Chaz Davies	Ducati	10	5.097
6	22	Alex Lowes	Kawasaki	10	5.725
7	54	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Yamaha	10	7.822
8	91	Leon Haslam	Honda	10	7.866
9	66	Tom Sykes	BMW	10	8.210
10	60	Michael van der Mark	Yamaha	10	8.587
11	76	Loris Baz	Yamaha	10	9.942
12	64	Federico Caricasulo	Yamaha	10	10.363
13	31	Garrett Gerloff	Yamaha	10	11.926
14	50	Eugene Laverty	BMW	10	16.157
15	77	Maximilian Scheib	Kawasaki	10	16.237
16	12	Xavi Fores	Kawasaki	10	16.529
17	33	Marco Melandri	Ducati	10	17.384
18	71	Matteo Ferrari	Ducati	10	28.204
19	20	Sylvain Barrier	Ducati	10	30.917
20	40	Roman Ramos	Kawasaki	10	31.003
21	13	Takumi Takahashi	Honda	10	32.699
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