Rea triumphs in World superbike race 1 in Assen

Jonathan Rea wins an eventful race 1 of the world superbikes.

Below is the race report courtesy of BSN.

Aruba Ducati’s Chaz Davies was denied the chance to fight for the race-one win at Assen as his Panigale broke down with one la to go, freeing up series leader Jonathan Rea to take victory by more than four second from team-mate Tom Sykes with Marco Melandri in third.

Davies had led for almost the entire race and had just begun to swap passes with Kawasaki’s Rea as the fight for the win began to get heated. Rea put a move on Davies at Ramshoek with four to go but the Welshman was back past at the Geert Timmer chicane.

A lap later, two identical moves saw Davies continue to lead but then on the penultimate lap, Rea was under Davies at Strubben. The Welshman showed Rea a wheel at De Bult but then his bike cut out as they approached the chicane and Davies cruised across the line to pull over on the grass.

It means Davies is now 75 points behind Rea, who set a new lap record one second faster than his own 2015 effort, in the championship chase as both Sykes and team-mate Melandri leapfrog him in the points table. He also starts one place behind Rea in tenth tomorrow.

Melandri took another opportunist podium after a lonely race and said in parc ferme that he didn’t think this morning that he could even end in the top five. The Italian was a second slower than Davies for most of the race and finished more than 17s behind Rea at the chequered flag.

Xavi Fores also had a quiet ride for fourth after making his way through the pack, with Lorenzo Savadori fifth. Stefan Bradl found some serious pace in the race, fighting his way from 16th on the grid to take sixth place ahead of surprise package Roman Ramos on the Go Eleven Kawasaki.

Eugene Laverty, who is using a 2012 swingarm on the Milwaukee Aprilia, began brightly and was in the fight for sixth but slipped back to eighth, just ahead of Tati Mercado on the Ioda Aprilia. Leon Camier brought the MV home in tenth.

Former MotoGP star Nicky Hayden had a disaster, ending in 14th behind Randy Krummenacher, Alex De Angelis and Raffaele De Rosa but not as big a disaster as the Pata Yamaha boys. Michael Van Der Mark was in collision with team-mate Lowes and Hayden at Haarbocht on lap one, running off track and then crashed on the exit of Ossebroeken as he charged through the field.

Lowes took his third tumble of the weekend, crashing at Mandeveen with nine left to run.