Rea celebrates World Superbike title with Magny-Cours double
Full World Superbike race two results from Magny-Cours
Jonathan Rea has capped another unstoppable race weekend having celebrated clinching the 2018 World Superbike championship with victory in the opening race by completing a dominant double at Magny-Cours to stretch his winning run to eight consecutive races.
Full World Superbike race two results from Magny-Cours
Jonathan Rea has capped another unstoppable race weekend having celebrated clinching the 2018 World Superbike championship with victory in the opening race by completing a dominant double at Magny-Cours to stretch his winning run to eight consecutive races.
The four-time World Superbike champion bolted from ninth on the reverse grid to third place by the end of the opening lap in race two to slot in behind Aruba.it Racing Ducati’s Chaz Davies and Pata Yamaha’s Michael van der Mark.
With seven straight wins coming into the Magny-Cours Sunday race, Rea made light work of getting past van der Mark for second place at the start of the third place and began to pursue Davies who had already pulled out a one-second advantage.
Despite a couple of misjudged passes at the Adelaide hairpin, Rea eventually got the move done on Davies on lap 11 before gradually pulling away for a comfortable victory.
Rea now has the opportunity to take the all-time wins record in a single season if he also completes doubles in Argentina and Qatar for the final two rounds.
Having lost the chance to continue his fight for the World Superbike title, Davies strengthened his grip on second place by taking the runner-up spot ahead of nearest championship rival van der Mark in third. Davies now holds a 26-point advantage for second place in the riders' standings on the Pata Yamaha rider with two rounds to go.
Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes made his way up to fourth place with a late race overtake on factory Ducati’s Marco Melandri with Milwaukee Aprilia’s Lorenzo Savadori taking a distant sixth place.
Alex Lowes fought back from his crash in race one to take seventh place for Pata Yamaha ahead of race one rostrum finisher Xavi Fores on the Barni Ducati while Leon Camier found key gains in race two to take ninth place for Red Bull Honda.
Loris Baz won a fierce three-rider fight to take 10th place for Althea BMW ahead of Eugene Laverty (Milwaukee Aprilia) and Toprak Razgatlioglu (Puccetti Kawasaki) as Michael Ruben Rindali (Aruba.it Racing Ducati), Jordi Torres (MV Agusta) and Lenadro Mercado (Orelac Racing Kawasaki) rounded out the points places.
