Garrett Gerloff had an eventful World Superbike race two today, the GRT Yamaha WorldSBK rider running into six-time World Champion Jonathan Rea early and crashing, remounting, taking a long-lap penalty for his miscue with Rea, then riding through to ultimately finish seventh.
Gerloff, like everyone other than race winner Scott Redding and his Aruba.it Racing Ducati teammate Michael Ruben Rinaldi, chose intermediate tires in the iffy conditions and got off to a great start to battle with Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK’s Rea and Alex Lowes. Then came the incident with Rea, who was leading when struck from behind by Gerloff.
Fortunately, Rea didn’t crash, but it dropped him back in the order. Redding and his slicks, meanwhile, started to move through the field and once into the lead he took off, leaving a horde to battle for second behind him.
That spot eventually went to Rea, almost 10 seconds adrift of Redding and just half a second faster ahead of Lowes. BMW Motorrad’s Tom Sykes was next after getting the better of his teammate Michael van der Mark. Pata Yamaha’s Topak Razgatlioglu ended up sixth with Gerlfoff on is tail and just ahead of Jonas Folger and his Bonovo MGM Racing BMW.
Rea leads Lowes in the title chase, 57-45, with Redding now fourth on 40 points. Gerloff is sixth in the championship.
