Jonathan Rea took his 2015 record to four victories from five starts after fending off Chaz Davies in a thrilling climax to race one at Motorland Aragon. The championship leader first saw off the challenge of his teammate Tom Sykes before hanging on in an action-packed final lap as Davies threw everything at him.
Chasing his first victory of the season, Sykes stormed into an early lead and initially looked like he was on his way to a vintage lights-to-flag success. However, the Yorkshireman never extended his lead beyond a second and by half distance, he started to come under intense pressure from behind.
Davies led the chase in the early laps but Rea wrestled second place away from the Ducati on lap eight with a sensational move up the inside of turn four. The Ulsterman zeroed straight in on his teammate and appeared to be biding his time but with six laps remaining, Rea repeated his earlier move on Davies at the fast left hander to snatch the lead.
Just a lap later, Sykes surrendered second to the Ducati of Davies and with just 3.1 miles remaining, Rea looked in danger of suffering the same fate. Chaz’s strongest part of the circuit looked to be the third sector and the Welshman dived up the inside of the Kawasaki at turn fifteen. That move proved unsuccessful but Chaz tried again at the last corner, sending a desperate move up the inside of Rea’s ZX-10R. Jonathan crucially kept his cool though and ducked back underneath the Ducati Panigale on the run to the finish line, snatching victory by five hundredths of a second.
Sykes trailed five seconds behind in third with the Aprilias of Leon Haslam and Jordi Torres even further in the distance, finishing fourth and fifth respectively. Xavi Fores completed the top six on the second Aruba.it Ducati with Nicolas Terol and Leandro Mercado impressing in seventh and eighth.
Honda endured a miserable start to the day though with Sylvain Guintoli their sole finisher in ninth, half a minute down, but their problems paled in comparison to Suzuki’s as Alex Lowes and Randy de Puniet were both ruled out with technical problems.
