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/1396232
Rea Scampers Clear At Assen WorldSBK W e are used to seeing Jona- than Rea (KRT) win races at Assen. So much so that when he won all three WorldSBK races July 24-25, after also securing Su- perpole in dramatic fashion, the main takeaway of the event was nothing to do with all that, rather it was the latest incident involv- ing Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yamaha) and his inexplicable collisions with other riders. This time the victim was the worst possible for Yamaha's Championship hopes, Toprak Razgatlioglu, at turn one of race two. The Turk started the weekend two points ahead of Rea in the series but would leave some 37 points in arrears. All this late drama could not mask what was a great return to Assen, having been dropped from the schedule in 2020 for pandemic reasons. In Superpole, Jonathan Rea had a yellow-flag-lap deletion scare, before taking his fifth con- secutive pole position prize of the year on his second Q tire. He's up to 32 in-all now, third-best ever. Alongside him on the race- one and Superpole-race grids were Razgatlioglu (another early Superpole crasher) and Ducati's Scott Redding. That is, the still- current championship top three all on the front row. Rea would eventually win by three seconds, but the race was red-flagged and called after 19 laps anyway, after Jonas Folger (Bonovo MGM BMW) suffered a high-speed crash and was attended by the medics and mar- shals trackside. He was ruled out of any further Assen action with a concussion and multiple contu- sions, but no major injuries. No way Redding in second and Razgatlioglu in third were go- ing to get to Rea anyway, as both their front tires were shot on the right side. Ninth to fourth place and 1.2 seconds from a podium place for Michael van der Mark (BMW Motorrad) warmed the hearts of the Dutch crowd. Andrea Locatelli, Razgatlioglu's improving teammate, was a strong fifth, Gerloff and Sykes impres- sively sixth and seventh, respec- tively, after their back-row starts. With the track flooded on Sunday morning after Saturday night's rain, the warm-up sessions were delayed for pumping stand- ing water off the track in several corners. IN THE WIND P26 Jonathan Rea (1) has Assen on lockdown but all the drama came about 10 seconds after this shot was taken. PHOTOS: GOLD & GOOSE