Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) won the 60th race of his career in race one at Brno, and his sixth race of the 2018 season. His latest success took him clear at the top of the all-time race winners’ ranking, moving one place ahead of Carl Fogarty’s 59 race wins.
Rea was over 1.5 seconds clear after two laps and was able to manage his gap back to the other podium challengers with relative ease.
Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) was second, over five seconds behind Rea – and yet clearly ahead of third place rider Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team).
The first attempted running of the race, with a 13.00 start, was stopped with Rea in a small but significant lead, after yet another air fence failure following an accident. Jordi Torres and Michal Ruben Rinaldi had both fallen at Turn 5.
A 17-lap race was started afresh, half an hour after the first… in theory. A false start, when one or two riders jumped forward, saw another delayed start after technical problems on the lighting gantry. A 16-lap race began shortly afterwards.
In the final race itself, Rea ran away and clear, 2.5 seconds ahead on lap five of 16.
Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK) got the better of his team-mate Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK) to take fourth, despite some lurid slides late in the race.
Eugene Laverty (Milwaukee Aprilia) scored sixth, just about two seconds ahead of his team-mate Lorenzo Savadori (Milwaukee Aprilia).
Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) was a disappointed eighth, with Leon Camier (Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team) just behind in ninth.
Toprak Razgatlioglu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) recovered from a lowly 15th grid position to finish tenth. PJ Jacobsen (TripleM Honda World Superbike Team) was 15th, and scored a point.
In the championship, Res is now 81 points ahead of Chaz Davies, 270 to 189.
By Gordon Ritchie
