ROAD RACING
FIM SUPERBIKE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 1 / FEBRUARY 27-29, 2020
PHILLIP ISL AND / PHILLIP ISL AND, AUSTRALIA
P74
inside the top four of race two,
but still only 1.784 seconds.
Finally, Lowes and Rea got
themselves into a position to fight
each other, and Lowes passed
Rea on the penultimate lap. They
scrapped hard, but fairly, and
Lowes came out the winner by
just 0.037 seconds.
"In the second race, there
were so many people hitting ev-
erybody, Johnny trying to control
the pace, and Baz hit me a few
times," Lowes said. "It was hard
just to stay calm, but each time I
passed the pit box, I said to my-
self, 'relax, stay calm, you have
got the pace for the next 10 laps—
relax, relax.' In the end, luckily, I
had a bit more grip than the other
guys and won."
lap one in 14th place.
It was worse for Bautista, who
crashed and came back in for
running repairs, finishing 16th
and losing out on even a point by
one position.
Federico Caricasulo (GRT
Yamaha) also crashed in his first
sprint race and finished 14th.
The top seven were only 1.849
apart at the flag in the sprint.
A form of redemption would
come for Davies, fifth in the
third race—still bizarrely called
"race two"—over 22-laps in much
warmer track conditions than any
other P.I. race.
In the leading group, a rolling
piece of real estate that Davies
threatened at one time, there was
a relatively widely spaced finish
down," said Rea. "It seemed like
I was really setting the rhythm
with a few laps to go. Toprak was
showing me his front wheel, so I
knew he was there. On the last
lap, throwing the bike down the
inside line, I knew I had a little bit
more traction."
Redding, living up to the
sometimes-self-imposed hype,
was a star again in third, by
only 0.072 seconds. Lowes, so
potent in race one, was fourth,
with VDM fifth, running a bike that
had suddenly lost feel after setup
changes for the short sprint race.
Sykes was sixth, after losing
his pole advantage early, the
hyper-aggressive Loris Baz sev-
enth and Haslam eighth, despite
being run off track and finishing
Tom Sykes was at the
front of race one but
dropped like a stone
late in the race with a
shattered rear tire.
