Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1379564
VOLUME 58 ISSUE 22 JUNE 2, 2021 P37 The final race settled into Redding in front, Rea having had some close calls, making use of Razgatlioglu's enforced absenc- es for his long laps. And a straight fight between Redding's SCX and Rea's SC0, with Chaz Davies in third by lap five and looking dangerous at a circuit he won at in his final fac- tory race last year. Chaz would take second, and the astounding Razgatlioglu third after pushing on from his long-lap penalties. He loves Estoril, to put it simply. Rea attacked and passed Redding on the entry to turn one on lap 15. "Attack" may be too strong a word, but Rea said it was a block-pass himself, but Redding came back straight away. As Rea then slipped by again, Redding had a moment of misjudgment, pushing his front too hard and off he went at turn four. He finished 14th after restarting but was punished by a race and my mentality was just to settle in and my feeling was, and also the data confirmed it, that I rolled off the throttle earlier than normal, as I knew I had the draft from the guys in front of me," said Gerloff. "I grabbed the brakes a little bit earlier, and just had the rear wheel come up off the ground, a bit, and it touched [back down] and kicked me super-hard to the inside. As soon as it took me to the inside, I had to release the brake a bit obvi- ously, and it was then that things got a little bit out of control. I did my best to go to the right and avoid everybody, and I thought I was going to be able to do that, but it was unfortunate that I tagged Rinaldi. Sorry to him, but it was definitely like kind of a freak thing for me because my mentality was to just settle into the race, it was going to be a long race, so to have this happen I am just kind of scratching my head. I am not really too sure why." around from yesterday morning. A nice podium yesterday, battling for the win to the last lap, just the grip for the win. I think we can forget this track being a bogey track now and be quite proud of the job we did." The "job" was completed by a "race two" win. It would take another Rea special, and some less-than-special moments for many of his rivals, to see Rea take a second Sunday win, and extend his championship lead. At the lights, as the riders had to wait for a long, long time, first Razgatlioglu did a jump forward from second place. Jump, brake, go! A bad launch routine he has never rehearsed before, and he took two "long laps" as a punish- ment. Alongside Razgatlioglu, and behind the eye-line of his fellow front-row starter, Redding had also reacted a bit too soon. Redding got away with it. Or so it seemed. No warning came for Rea when he and the following Michael Ruben Rinaldi clashed, Rea having his arm dislodged by the "wings" on the Ducati bodywork, running him wide and dropping to sixth place. He recovered well, back into second on lap five, but a lot else had happened by then. Garrett Gerloff had a wobble, wheelie and then not enough asphalt left to avoid Rinaldi, and they both fell hard on lap two. Two fourths and a fall for Garrett this weekend. "It was the second lap of the Scott Redding won the first race but things went all wrong in race two.