At Brno Jonathan Rea took his sixth win in 2018 season by triumphing in Race 1 and this means that he’s reached the long desired number 60, making him the most winning rider in WorldSBK. The reigning World Champion beated the previous record, set by Carl Fogarty (59 wins) by dominating from the first till the last lap.
The race had been interrupted after just two laps after Michael Rinaldi’s crash at Turn 5, following which an air fence had to be replaced. Moreover, just before the restart the lights were turned on too early and this caused the start to be delayed again. As everything went back to normal and the race restarted, Rea distanced all his opponents after overtaking Tom Sykes during the first lap and then he increased the gap step by step, till winning with five seconds of advantage on Marco Melandri.
The Ducati rider from Ravenna spent the first laps fighting with Yamaha riders Alex Lwes and Michael van der Mark and with KRT’s Tom Sykes, then he got away after overtaking Sykes. He tried to reach Jonathan Rea, but his laptimes weren’t fast enough and so Melandri had to content with a solo second place. Another riders who had a solo race after some exciting laps is Tom Sykes, who ranked third. Michael van der Mark and Alex Lowes closed the top 10 after battling with each other.
Very difficult race for Chaz Davies. So far the Welsh rider has struggled a lot at Brno and he spent most of Race 1 fighting with Milwaukee Aprilia pair Eugene Laverty and Lorenzo Savadori (much overtaking with Laverty). Finally Laverty ranked sixth followed by Savadori, Davies and Leon Camier, while Toprak Razgatlioglu scored a lonely 10th place after the crash of Loris Baz, who was fighting with him till he fell at Turn 13 some laps before the end.
Season best result for Yonny Hernandez, as he ranked 11th, while Michael Rinaldi scored one point after the early crash causing the red flag. Double KO for MV Agusta’s Jordi Torres: after falling before the red flag, he had to retire during the “second race” due to technical issues, as also Jake Gagne did. Finally, we remark the lonely 17th place of home hero Ondrej Jezek.
