H
alfway through the Super-
bike World Championship
weekend in Jerez, Ducati's
Alvaro Bautista held a 61-point
lead over Kawasaki's Jonathan
Rea. Bautista and his Ducati Pan-
igale V4 R won the fi rst 11 races of
the season. At that point, Bautista
looked untouchable.
But Rea was piling up points
whenever he could not beat Bau-
tista, and Bautista then fell into
a devastating mid-season results
slump. He crashed out of the
lead twice and suffered a vicious
highside at Donington Park in
Race One when he wasn't even se-
riously contending for the win.
Somehow, Rea has overcome
Bautista's huge points advantage.
After the races at Misano and
Donington Kawasaki ZX-10RR-
mounted Rea held a 24-point lead
as the series headed for Weath-
erTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
"I feel like there are some
good tracks coming for us now.
I seriously did not expect these
kind of results this weekend," Rea
said after winning all three of the
races at Donington and stretching
his 2019 win streak to four.
At a soaking-wet Misano,Rea won Race One while Bautis-
ta struggled to third behind Tom
Sykes, who gave the new BMW
S1000RR its fi rst podium. Bautis-
ta won the Tissot Superpole race
on Sunday after Rea crashed, re-
mounted and fi nished fi fth. Rea
then won Race Two after Bautista
crashed out of the lead, as he had
in the fi nal race at Jerez.
Rain fell again on Saturday at
Donington Park, where Rea domi-
nated a sodden Race One, edged
Sykes in the Superpole race and
battled past Toprak Razgatlioglu's
Turkish Puccetti Racing ZX-10RR.
Sykes was resurgent on the
still-developing BMW, taking pole
in damp-but-drying conditions
at Donington to extend his lead
in the all-time Superpole stand-
ings with 49. And Sykes led Rea
for several laps in the dry during
the Superpole race on Sunday and
crossed the line in second, only to
be excluded from the fi nal results
after he crashed in oil after a red
fl ag and did not get the bike back
to the pits in time.
Rea's teammate and defend-
ing British Superbike Champion
Leon Haslam strung together a se-
ries of podium fi nishes, aided bySykes’ disqualifi cation
in the Superpole race at
Donington. But Haslam
was still struggling to
get his ZX-10RR in
World Superbike trim to
brake the way he likes.
Razgatlioglu, on
the other hand, was re-
ally coming to grips with
the Kawasaki, pulling
off late-braking moves
that look like the begin-
ning stages of crashes
until, improbably, he
makes the corner. Rea
twice has had to battle
the hard to beat young
Turk, in Race Two at
Misano and Donington.
Yamaha's challenge has fall-
en apart. With Michael van der
Mark suffering a broken wrist in
a spectacular crash at Misano, the
work has been left to Alex Low-
es in the factory Pata team, and
Lowes’ best result has been a sec-
ond in the Superpole race at Mis-
ano. The GRT Yamaha WorldSBK
team’s Marco Melandri and de-
fending Supersport Champion
Sandro Cortese have been shown
up by the stout performances ofLoris Baz aboard the Ten Kate
Racing Yamaha YZF-R1, a team
that jumped in well after the sea-
son had started.
Former AMA Pro and Dayto-
na 200 winner Chaz Davies has
been nowhere near the front on
his Ducati this season. Fifth in
Race One at Misano has been Da-
vies’ best in the last two rounds.
But the Honda- backed Moriwaki/
Althea team has fared worse: Leon
Camier has not participated due toMOTUL FIM SUPERBIKE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
Rea Takes
Championship Lead
MISANO, SAN MARINO/
DONINGTON PARK, U.K.(Above) Start of Race Two at Donington Park, with Jonathan Rea (1) leading Toprak Razgatlioglu (54),
Alvaro Bautista (19), Chaz Davies (7), Michael van der Mark (60), Leon Haslam (91), Loris Baz (76), Tom Sykes
(66), Alex Lowes (22), Michael Rinaldi (21), Jordi Torres (81), Sandro Cortese (11), Peter Hickman (10), Marco
Melandri (33), Leandro Mercado (36), Alessandro Delbianco (52) and the rest. (Below, Right) Second-place
Sykes, winner Rea and third-place Bautista on the podium after Race One in Misano.36—Roadracing World, August 2019