A victory and two podiums for Rea in Aragon

A new WorldSBK season has started. And nothing less than in the MotorLand circuit, in Aragón. Jonathan Rea and Alex Lowes begin this new year eager to give it their all, and they demonstrated this already on the first day of the championship, on Friday, both showing a lot of speed in their respective ZX-10RR Ninjas. The best lap of Friday for Jonathan Rea, who was the leader on the first day, was marked very early in the opening session, as it was noted that he arrived at the track full of confidence, with his batteries fully charged. His best time of 1'49.301 was 0.305 seconds faster than the rider in second place.

On Saturday, Rea secured a start for the first race from third place in qualifying, starting alongside Toprak Razgatlioglu and Álvaro Bautista. Going into the race, the leading three riders battled it out over the opening laps, turning the action into a three-way battle to see who would take the most points in this first race of the season.

Already in the last lap, with Razgatlioglu slowing down, Rea had to face Bautista for what was going to be his first victory. Jonathan took the lead on the back straight, but the Spanish rider overtook him as they approached the braking zone. However, the Northern Irish rider made a decisive move on the inside line towards the final corner, keeping his lead until the start and winning by just 0.090sec. Bautista was second, and Razgatlioglu was third, 5.416 seconds behind Rea.

Alex, for his part, qualified fifth in Superpole and started the race from the second row of the grid. However, bad luck was on Lowes's side as he found himself in fifth position, at the head of the riders chasing the leaders. He crashed at turn 12 on lap seven and was unable to continue the race.

In the first ten-lap Superpole race on Sunday morning, Rea, on board of his Ninja ZX-10RR, had to battle for second place, facing constant challenges from Michael Ruben Rinaldi throughout the second half. of the career. Lowes finished sixth, scoring his first points of the season after Saturday's crash.

In the 18-lap Race Two, Jonathan found himself once again involved in a battle that prevented him from trying to catch the eventual winner, Álvaro Bautista. Rea finished second once again, getting back on the podium.

This time, Lowes was able to finish in fifth place after running some very good laps on the 5.007-kilometre MotorLand Aragón race track, achieving his best result in this first weekend.

Rea is second overall, with 54 points, compared to 57 for Bautista. Lowes, eighth, with 15 points. We will have to wait until April 22 to see how the action continues in the World Superbike Championship.