For the second time in the 2020 WorldSBK season, the Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team conquers the two highest steps of the podium. After the one-two in Race-2 at Jerez de la Frontera, Scott Redding and Chaz Davies make another masterpiece in Race-1 of the Prosecco Doc Aragon Round.
Starting from the third position after a convincing qualifying, Scott Redding builds his victory since the first laps when he doesn’t lose contact with Rea (Kawasaki). On lap 8, the English rider takes the first position that he controls well until lap 14 when Rea tries to attack him. Scott defends himself well and forces Rea to make a mistake, conquering the third victory of the season that allows him to return to the lead of the Superbike World Championship standings.
Chaz Davies’ Superpole is not incisive and forces him to start from ninth place. Once again the Welsh rider is the protagonist of a spectacular comeback. In the first six laps he recovers five positions and after the crash of Lowes (Kawasaki) – also thanks to an extremely solid race pace – he starts chasing Rea overtaking him with 3 laps to go. In the last lap, Chaz also tries to attack Scott finishing only 3 tenths from his teammate.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS TOP 5
P1 | 157 – S. Redding (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati)
P2 | 152 – J. Rea (Kawasaki)
P3 | 113 – T. Razgatlioglu (Yamaha)
P4 | 95 – C. Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati)
P5 | 93 – M. Van Der Mark (Yamaha)
Scott Redding (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati)
“I’m really happy because until this morning the feeling was certainly not the best one. Maybe something has changed in the Superpole, but the conditions were not ideal. I tried to stay focused, thinking only of not losing contact with the leading group to achieve a good result. During the race, the feeling with the bike grew, and I managed to take this great victory that I dedicate to the whole team that never gave up doing an extraordinary job”.
Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati)
“It is clear that the starting position did not help me, but I got off a good start, and in the first laps, I managed to keep a good pace to recover positions. The feeling was positive, and I closed the gap between the leading group and me. I tried to manage the tires then when I saw that Scott and Rea were gaining advantage I pushed to the maximum. I think if I had one more lap, I could have overtaken Scott, but he was still very good at defending himself without allowing me to attack him”.
Marco Zambenedetti (Ducati Corse Superbike Technical Coordinator)
“It was an excellent first race. We confirmed the good feelings we had already in the tests of two weeks ago with Chaz, while with Scott, we made a little more effort and still managed to find a solid base of set up. Also, the result obtained by Michael Rinaldi (P4) confirms the goodness of the work we are doing. This gives us great confidence ahead of the next five races that we will compete on this circuit, but it is clear that there is still room for improvement. We still have to work, and we will try from tomorrow to do it better than the others”.
