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Qatar WSBK: Rea wins again in penultimate race

Jonathan Rea eased to victory in the final Superpole race of the 2019 World Superbike season ahead of Alvaro Bautista on Saturday in Qatar.

Jonathan Rea, Kawasaki Racing Team takes pole

Jonathan Rea, Kawasaki Racing Team takes pole

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Rea grabbed the holeshot off the line from pole position and was never surpassed all the way to the chequered flag to claim his 16th win of the year.

Yamaha’s Alex Lowes slotted in behind Rea on the run to Turn 1 at the start, with Leon Haslam on the sister works Kawasaki and Ducati Alvaro Bautista following.

Bautista made light work of Haslam on the pit straight, using the power of the Panigale V4 R to blast past into third at the end of the first of 10 laps.

Meanwhile, Rea was already over a second clear of Lowes, with his gap up to 1.7s by the end of the second tour.

Now free of Haslam, Bautista set about hunting down Lowes, and carved through on the inside of Turn 11 on lap two to move into second.

Bautista’s march forward ended there, however, as Rea continued to gouge time out of the rest and was 2.5s clear by lap three.

Faultless to the end, world champion Rea matched erstwhile standings leader Bautista’s season tally of 16 wins and will start on pole for the last race of the season later this evening.

Lowes came under attack from Haslam in the latter stages of the sprint contest, but held onto the final podium spot to strengthen his third position in the championship.

Chaz Davies completed the top five on the sister works Ducati having started from 12th, with Michael van der Mark (Yamaha) fending off a hard-charging Loris Baz on the Ten Kate-run R1 for sixth.

Sandro Cortese dropped off the front row at the start and was eighth in the end on his GRT R1, with Eugene Laverty securing the final point in ninth on the Go Eleven Ducati ahead of Marco Melandri (GRT).

Toprak Razgatlioglu’s outside hopes of securing third in the standings took a fatal blow when he failed to make the start of the sprint race due to a mechanical issue with his Puccetti Kawasaki.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Barni Ducati) failed to finish, also as a result of technical problems.

Race results

Cla # Rider Bike Laps Time Gap
1 1 United Kingdom Jonathan Rea
Kawasaki 10 19'41.833
2 19 Spain Alvaro Bautista
Ducati 10 19'43.860 02.027
3 22 United Kingdom Alex Lowes
Yamaha 10 19'46.976 05.143
4 91 United Kingdom Leon Haslam
Kawasaki 10 19'47.136 05.303
5 7 United Kingdom Chaz Davies
Ducati 10 19'48.448 06.615
6 60 Netherlands Michael van der Mark
Yamaha 10 19'51.577 09.744
7 76 France Loris Baz
Yamaha 10 19'51.637 09.804
8 11 Germany Sandro Cortese
Yamaha 10 19'52.056 10.223
9 50 Ireland Eugene Laverty
Ducati 10 19'57.069 15.236
10 33 Italy Marco Melandri
Yamaha 10 19'57.603 15.770
11 36 Argentina Leandro Mercado
Kawasaki 10 19'59.390 17.557
12 66 United Kingdom Tom Sykes
BMW 10 20'00.814 18.981
13 2 United Kingdom Leon Camier
Honda 10 20'01.766 19.933
14 81 Spain Jordi Torres
Kawasaki 10 20'01.893 20.060
15 28 Germany Markus Reiterberger
BMW 10 20'03.638 21.805
16 23 Japan Ryuichi Kiyonari
Honda 10 20'11.291 29.458
17 9 Switzerland Dominic Schmitter
Yamaha 10 20'22.008 40.175
18 52 Italy Alessandro Del Bianco
Honda 10 20'22.036 40.203
21 Italy Michael Ruben Rinaldi
Ducati 5 5 laps
54 Turkey Toprak Razgatlioglu
Kawasaki 0 10 laps

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