Factory Ducati rider Scott Redding popped his WorldSBK cherry in the opening WorldSBK race at Jerez, taking the win after passing reigning champion Jonathan Rea with six left to run.
Running in scorching temperatures, Redding started the race from pole but was beaten to the first corner by Rea’s Kawasaki. The pair ran in concert with Yamaha’s Toprak Razgatlioglu with the Turk bagging the final podium spot.
After making his pass on the king, Redding pushed out a gap that was never seriously threatened despite the best efforts of Rea, who finished in second place and 1.147 seconds down.
A final podium fight between Razgatlioglu and Chaz Davies went to the Yamaha rider after some attempted passes from Davies, one of which lost him too much ground to make up on the very last lap. Davies had ridden through the pack from seventh and was often half a second quicker than his Ducati team-mate.
With the Welshman fourth, Loris Baz (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha) placed fifth, 3.3 seconds from the race winner Redding.
Michael Rinaldi (Team GoEleven Ducati) came through strongly for sixth, well ahead of top Honda rider Alvaro Bautista (HRC, who finished ten seconds back from the leaders.
On his return to WorldSBK, Marco Melandri (Barni Racing Ducati) finished eighth, with an out-of-sorts Alex Lowes (KRT) ninth after choosing the standard SC2 front and early force Leon Haslam (HRC) tenth.
Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Team) and early race podium sitter Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK) each went out with machine problems.
