WSB: Jonathan Rea clinches his sixth consecutive title at Estoril

Jonathan Rea created even more history at the weekend by clinching his sixth consecutive World Superbike title at Estoril. 

Rea becomes only the second rider in history to win a premier class world title on six consecutive occasions. The only other rider to do so is Giacomo Agostini, who won 500cc title (1966-1972) and 350cc title (1968-1974) seven years in a row. Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez are the only other riders to become six-time premier class world champions.

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Rea only needed three points across the three races and he duly completed his task in the opening race of the weekend on Saturday. It didn’t come easy though. A crash at turn four during the Superpole Qualifying session meant that he started race one from 15th – the first time he’d qualified outside the top 10 since Nurburgring in 2011. 

Remarkably, Rea had battled his way up into second by the ninth lap of the race. He would eventually lose out to Chaz Davies and Garrett Gerloff, crossing the line in fourth to take his title. Toprak Razgatlioglu secured his second victory of 2020 for Yamaha. 

On Sunday Rea ended the Superpole race in fifth after once again battling his way back from 15th on the grid. At the front, Razgatlioglu, Gerloff and Michael van der Mark made history with a Yamaha one-two-three. That’s the first WSB one-two-three in the manufacturer’s history.

Rea will have to wait until 2021 for his 100th WSB victory after uncharacteristically crashing in the third and final race of the weekend. Rea made contact with Razgatlioglu’s Yamaha at turn three as he tried to pass the Turkish rider for second. Rea was able to re-join the race and finished down in 14th. Razgatlioglu finished on the podium (third) to complete a hat-trick of rostrums in Portugal. 

At the front, Chaz Davies won his final race for the ARUBA.IT Racing Ducati team, with Scott Redding making a one-two for the squad. As a result, the team clinched the Teams’ Championship ahead of KRT. Xavi Fores clinched the Manufacturers’ Championship for Kawasaki with his eighth in race two moving them one point clear of Ducati. Alex Lowes finished sixth in race one but failed to finish both races on Sunday. 

Elsewhere, Leon Haslam and Alvaro Bautista enjoyed a positive ending to their maiden campaign on the brand-new Honda Fireblade. Haslam finished fifth in race one, with Bautista matching that in race two. The duo also collected a pair of seventh place finishes across the weekend. 

Tom Sykes secured two top 10s for BMW, finishing 10th in the two feature races. Teammate Eugene Laverty’s finished 12th in those respective races. Jonas Folger secured a pair of 11ths on his second wildcard appearance of the season. 

In the final championship standings Rea ended the season with a 55-point advantage over Redding. Davies ends the year third overall, ahead of Razgatlioglu and Van der Mark.