Portugal Grand Prix - Race 2

Rea dominates to take wet race two victory

07-07-2014

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Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea proved to be unbeatable in the second World Superbike race at a very wet Portimao track – as the Northern Irishman dominated to take home his very first win at the Portuguese circuit, and his fourth victory of the year so far.

The Ducati pairing of Davide Giugliano and Chaz Davies completed the final two steps on the podium – and it was Davies’ third of the year with his new team. But the duo could not catch Rea, who ended the final Superbike race of the day with a six second advantage.

In the very wet conditions out on track it was Rea who got the hole-shot on the first lap, ahead of Kawasaki's Tom Sykes and Davies. With the heavy rain falling on the circuit the race was reduced by two laps to an 18 lapper.

Rea stormed on ahead and by lap two had a two second lead over the Kawasaki of Sykes. Davies on the other hand had to contend with the Aprilia duo of Marco Melandri and Sylvan Guintoli who were breathing down the neck of the Welshman – but Davies was holding on to third on lap three.

Baz was going strong in fifth, but went wide going into turn one pushing the young Frenchman down to eighth, meaning Haslam was able to move up to sixth. Elsewhere the Aprilia’s ended up getting the better of Davies on lap five and went on ahead of the Ducati.

By lap seven Rea had a four second lead over Sykes – and continued to edge on ahead. Davies was caught in a three-way battle for fifth with his team-mate Davide Giugliano and Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam, with the lead changing between the trio. The Smalley rider was going strong, but went hot into turn one and went wide allowing Davies and Giugliano to go through.

A lap later Melandri was edging ever closer to Sykes for the second spot and was soon on top of the current champ and soon the diminutive Italian along with his French colleague made move on turn 9 to pull Sykes down to fourth.

But the Kawasaki lad had Giugliano creeping up on him – and was soon closing the gap for that fourth spot. But the Italian soon out-paced the Yorkshireman.

With eight laps remaining Melandri was reining in Rea, with the rider closing the gap to 3 seconds. But a rotation later the Aprilia’s closed the gap to 1.1 seconds. The leading gaggle of riders proved uncatchable by lap 12 as they had an eight second lead over Giugliano in fourth.

But just as the Aprilia’s were closing in on Rea they collided and knocked each other off coming out of the hairpin. But both riders were able to re-join the race, but their podium ambitions were wiped out.

With Guintoli and Melandri out of contention Rea found himself with an eight second lead. Further down the pack Haslam went into third after making a pass on Sykes, with Lowes and Davies joining the mix for final step on the podium. The Voltcom rider soon had his friend, Haslam as his next target and began to close the gap – and made a move on lap 16 going into turn one.

Meanwhile Sykes was going backwards and his team-mate Baz took advantage of this on the straight, but all the action was for third. Lowes went wide on lap 16, leaving Davies and Haslam to take the provisional third and fourth places. On the final lap Rea was unbeatable and happily crossed the finishing line in first, followed by the Ducati's.

Lowes got the better of his mate, Haslam to take fourth, with the Pata Honda man equalling his best finish of the season so far, followed by Baz and Guintoli. Sykes crossed the finishing line in eighth, taking home some valuable points. Voltcom Suzuki’s Eugene Laverty was never able to make up for his poor start and ended the afternoon in tenth.

Alstare’s Christian Iddon just missed out on a top ten spot, as he ended the wet afternoon in eleventh. But his result doesn’t stand due to homologation rules, meaning BMW Italia’s Sylvain Barrier took the Evo victory.