Estoril WorldSBK: Rea Capitalizes
F
or the second round of the
season, in warm conditions in
Portugal, the top men were most-
ly fast on Friday, but six-times
champion Jonathan Rea is no
fan of the Estoril layout. Not with
all those stop-start areas, and he
was working on his setup all day
and some of the night Friday.
His bike's feel and pace im-
proved for him on Saturday, and
how.
In Superpole, affected by a
yellow flag incident that saw six
riders lose grid spots after the
powers that be changed the on-
track results, Rea piled in with his
second pole position of 2021, at
a record pace of 1:35.876.
Scott Redding and Toprak
Razgatlioglu were right behind for
race one.
On an SC0 tire Rea had a
theoretically more durable rear on
than the front two, but Redding
and Razgatlioglu were immacu-
late in their pace out front on the
SCX super-soft rears.
Rea closed, and in the final few
laps tried to get past Razgatlio-
glu, but the Turkish rider's ability
to brake, and Rea's unwillingness
to throw away a podium to get to
confident leader Redding, saw
him third.
In the Sunday Superpole race,
all 10 short laps of it, a curve ball.
On the tire sheets, the Kawa-
saki Racing Team opted to put
both their riders on the longer
duration SC0 standard rear tire,
not the SCX almost demanded by
such a short race.
Rea went out and won it;
Lowes coming through from 10th
on the grid to sixth.
It could have been anyone's
win between Rea, Razgatlioglu
and Redding, until Rea assert-
ed himself and eased out by
0.690 seconds at the flag from
Razgatlioglu.
Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yamaha)
was in the running for a podium,
but Redding re-passed him for
third, with Rinaldi fifth and Lowes
sixth.
As Rea said at the end of
play in Sunday, "Last year we
struggled, so we really turned it
IN
THE
WIND
P36
Even though Jonathan
Rea came away with just
one victory in Portugal, he
came way the big winner
by extending his points
lead.
PHOTOS: GOLD & GOOSE
