Jonathan Rea extends championship lead after Estoril double
Jonathan Rea has extended his WorldSBK championship lead to 35 points over Toprak Razgatlioglu after a Sunday clean sweep in Portugal.
Following MotorLand Aragon where he won the opening two of three races, Rea has looked in ominous form yet again through two rounds as he already has 110 points amassed.
Estoril was seen as an opportunity for others to gain ground due to last year’s difficulties for Kawasaki and Rea. But with the improved Ninja ZX-10RR and Rea’s unmatched consistency, it was certainly a business as usual weekend for the Northern Irishman.
A big reason for Rea’s upturn in form at Estoril compared to 2020 where he was unable to challenge the likes of Razgatlioglu, Scott Redding, Garrett Gerloff and Chaz Davies consistently, was his decision to use the SC0 tyre, whereas many on the grid went for the softer SCX option.
Rea used this in every race including the shorter Superpole race, however, the initial laps of race two left Rea unconvinced that it was the right call after losing five places on lap one.
Rea added: "I had a proper moment with Rinaldi in T4 and could have been down and then Laverty came through with good pace.
"I thought I was in trouble because the majority of the grid had the SCX tyre, and I opted for the SC0. I really believed in it, to be honest. But after those three or four laps I wasn’t convinced.
"But, once I got a bit of clear track I could see that Toprak [Razgatlioglu] and Chaz [Davies] were not going away, and I just tried to keep the gap. Then all of a sudden Toprak got a long lap penalty and that is like a free pass for track position. He is hard to pass.
"Scott was in a really solid rhythm but I was catching him in sectors two, three and four, but I was struggling a little bit in sector one. Step-by-step I got there. I was pretty happy to be able to stay there in the slipstream.
"I could feel Scott trying to pass in Turn Four and then I saw on my pitboard that he was out. Unfortunate for him, but it gave me a bit of breathing space and let me concentrate on my race."
