Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea took a lights-to-flag victory in the opening World Superbike race in Thailand this morning, only having to fend off a mid-race charge from title rival Leon Haslam to secure the win and 25 points.
Rea was never headed in the encounter, getting the holeshot and disappearing into the distance, putting a 1.8s gap into Haslam and the chasing pack on by lap four and racing to his pit signals for a six-second winning margin
“I knew to beat Aprilia today I had to try and go at the beginning as we had a speed deficit on the straights. My guys gave me amazing signals so I was able to manage at the front. It felt like a lonely race at the front but it’s a win and 25 points,” said Rea.
Haslam fell behind the second Kawasaki of Tom Sykes and Chaz Davies’ Ducati in the opening laps but fought through using the superior speed of the RSV4 to peg back the Welshman and then passed Sykes into turn one on lap three.
The Derby man then got his head down to try and reel in his former team-mate at the front, who had upped his lead to 2.3s on lap six. Haslam managed to pull it back to 1.8s at half distance but a late change of front-tyre choice saw him unable to match Rea’s mid-1.34s pace and he slowly fell back, losing five points to the Isle of Man resident.
“I was a little bit too cautious on the first lap, Tom and Chaz came past and by the time I got back past them, Jonathan had a couple of seconds on me. I closed him in a little bit but we opted for a different front tyre before the start of the race and it threw a few spanners in the works,” said Haslam.
Sykes had his hands full with Davies and the Voltcom Suzuki of Alex Lowes but both slid off at turn 12 in identical but separate crashes. Davies lost the front at the end of lap nine and re-joined just outside the points before crossing the line in 11th.
Lowes, meanwhile, had stuck it under Sykes, lifting up the former champion for third on lap seven and immeditately opening a gap but he went down on lap 12, eventually finishing in sixth place.
Jordi Torres, on the second Aprilia, was trying everything he could to pass Sykes but just couldn’t get close enough on the power to make it stick or put a move on the brakes, so had to settle for fourth.
Reigning champion Sylvain Guintoli ended in fifth as his rookie team-mate Michael Van Der Mark retired with a technical problem on seven.
Returning hero Troy Bayliss came back from an early mistake when he was challenging for a podium to end in eighth, just losing seventh place to fellow Ducati man Matteo Baiocco with David Salom and Tati Mercardo rounding out the top ten.
Leon Camier’s MV Agusta lasted just a handful of corners before it expired.
Championship points
Rea 70
Haslam 65
Sykes 38
Davies 37
Guintoli 31
