Race-1 of the Czech Round at the Autodrom Most (Czech Republic) gives great emotions to the Aruba.it Racing – Ducati Team thanks to the second place of Scott Redding and the fourth place of Michael Ruben Rinaldi.
Here are the highlights.
- Superpole
P3 – Scott Redding is confident after the P1 in FP3. The first run with Q tires is convincing, and then the English rider pushes harder in the second run: although he is virtually first, he has to abort the lap due to a yellow flag.
Scott doesn’t give up and performs a real miracle managing to complete the second lap in third position after having enjoyed the taste of pole position until the third sector.
P8 – Michael Rinaldi has to deal with a tire that he can’t make work in the best way. The number 21 closes his Superpole in eighth position having to settle for the third row.
- Superpole Results
P1 – J. Rea (Kawasaki) 1’31.684
P2 – T. Razgatlioglu (Yamaha) + 0.067
P3 – S. Redding (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) + 0.474
P4 – T. Sykes (BMW) + 0.489
P5 – G. Gerloff (Yamaha) + 0.554
P8 – M. Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) + 0.846
- Race-1
P2 – Scott Redding starts well and on lap 2 he turns the action into a masterpiece overtaking first Rea (Kawasaki) and then Raztgatlioglu (Yamaha) to take the lead. The English rider seems to be able to extend his lead but from lap 14 (after Rea’s crash) Razgatlioglu starts to make up ground.
In the last two sensational laps, Redding defends himself from the Turkish rider, but he cannot do anything against the aggressive overtaking at the last corner.
P4 – A solid start for Michael Rinaldi allows him to recover four positions. The race pace, however, is not particularly brilliant and on lap 10 Locatelli (Yamaha) manages to overtake him. Rinaldi finishes fourth taking 13 points that get him closer to fourth place in the championship standings.
- Race-1 results
P1 – T. Razgatlioglu (Yamaha)
P2 – S. Redding (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati)
P3 – A. Locatelli (Yamaha)
P4 – M. Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati)
P5 – A. Bassani (Ducati)
- Championship Standings
P1 – J. Rea (Kawasaki) 243
P2 – T. Razgatlioglu (Yamaha) 231
P3 – S. Redding (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) 182
P4 – A. Lowes (Kawasaki) 130
P5 – M. Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) 124
Scott Redding (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #45)
“I can’t be disappointed with this second place because it’s still an important result also for the World Championship standings. If I have to be honest, though, I think Toprak’s maneuver was very aggressive. But these are races, maybe tomorrow I’ll have to be more aggressive too. In any case it was a good race. The feeling with the bike was really good. I’ll try to do better tomorrow”.
Michael Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #21)
“I’m satisfied with this result especially because we were coming from a not easy period. The beginning of this weekend was quite complicated too, but the team has done a great job, facing the difficulties without never giving up; today we made great progress and this is the right direction: now we will work on the data we have collected to try to do better tomorrow”.
