WorldSBK Teruel Race 1 Results: Rinaldi romps to win, Redding crashes

Michael Ruben Rinaldi has broken his WorldSBK Championship victory duck in superb style with a dominant maiden win at Motorland Aragon as Scott Redding saw his title hopes dealt a major blow by a crash.

Competing in his third season of WorldSBK, Rinaldi has been one of the season’s standout performers on the unfancied Go Eleven Ducati but came into the first race of the weekend - his 66th in the series - yet to have stood on the podium. 

However, after snaring his maiden front row start in qualifying, Rinaldi put a tardy getaway behind him to get the better of both Redding and Jonathan Rea by the time they’d rounded lap one.

From here he was untouchable, at times multiplying his advantage over Rea by 0.7s a lap until he crossed the finish line with almost six seconds in hand. As well as being his first win, it also marks a huge success for Go Eleven, which has competed in various classes for more than a decade without topping the podium.

Despite having no answer to Rinaldi, Rea’s second place finish came in the midst of arch title rival Redding crashing out on lap seven. The Ducati rider was running third when he slid off at Turn 4, prompting a very emotional response from the ex-MotoGP rider in the pit box as he faced up to dropping 30 points off the lead.

Chaz Davies completed the podium after again battling back from a mid-field starting slot, though the Welshman was helped by Alvaro Bautista sliding off with four laps remaining as they disputed the spot.

Michael van der Mark rose from 12th to fourth to finish ahead of the Yamaha team-mate Michael van der Mark, while Alex Lowes put a stomach bug behind him to score a sixth place finish on the Kawasaki.

Leon Haslam was seventh, fending off Eugene Laverty, who took his best finish of the season in eighth, Federico Caricasulo and Tom Sykes.

2020 WorldSBK Aragon - Race 1 Results