WorldSBK Assen SPole Race Results | Double Dutch for Jonathan Rea at Assen

Jonathan Rea swelled both his 2021 WorldSBK Championship advantage and his new record for victories at Assen as he claimed his second win of the weekend in the Netherlands.

With his comfortable Race 1 success re-establishing his advantage in the overall standings, it also marked his 13th career WorldSBK win at Assen, which in turn makes him the all-time ‘winningest’ rider at any single WorldSBK circuit in the world.

Sunday morning, however, brought him a 14th win at the “Cathedral of Speed’, Rea recovering from being bullied down to third position on the opening lap to pick his way back up the order over the following revolutions.

Relieving brief leader Michael Ruben Rinaldi on Lap 3, Rea quickly made his break as the Italian came under pressure from Aruba.it Ducati team-mate Scott Redding and Toprak Razgatlioglu on the Yamaha.

Keeping that forward momentum to cross the line some 3.5secs clear of the opposition, Rea now leads the overall standings by 12 points.

Having crashed out of race one, while Rinaldi on the softer combination seemed destined to be swallowed up by the chasing pack, the double Misano winner held his ground to persistently rebuff team-mate Redding to such an extent it allowed Razgatlioglu to mount his own attack on the British rider.

Allowing Rinaldi to scamper ahead, Razgatlioglu eventually got the job done on Lap 7 with a clearly ailing Redding picked off again on Lap 8 by the second Pata Yamaha R1 of Andrea Locatelli.

Released into clear air, Razgatlioglu rapidly bridged the gap to Rinaldi coming into the final lap and was even able to get the jump on the Italian just five corners from home, with Locatelli following him through for what appeared to be a well-deserved maiden podium for the Italian rookie.

However, stewards would consider the Yamaha pair to have gained their position over Rinaldi illegally, thus promoting the Ducati man back into second place with Razgatlioglu in third and Locatelli an unlucky but still season-best fourth.

Alex Lowes completed the top six ahead of Tom Sykes and Garrett Gerloff, who both made big gains from having started on the back row of the grid, the legacy of technical problems and a crash respectively in qualifying. 

Chaz Davies secured ninth to earn a spot on the third row for the final race of the weekend ths afternoon. Outside the top nine and therefore outside the points, Axel Bassani, Tito Rabat, Leon Haslam and Isaac Vinales filled positions 10th to 14th.

There was frustration again for Alvaro Bautista, who suffered his second crash in as many races on lap one, while home hope Michael van der Mark was another to slip off on the first revolution much to the disappointment of the Dutch locals.

2021 WorldSBK Assen | Superpole RACE RESULTS