GRT Yamaha WorldSBK’s Garrett Gerloff fought through from a rough couple of opening laps to finish fourth in today’s race one of the World Superbike Championship round in Estoril, Portugal.
Gerloff, who qualified fourth and started from the second row, completed the first lap in ninth. By the 10th of 21 laps, Gerloff was fifth and starting to make inroads to the back of Michael Ruben Rinaldi’s Aruba.it Racing Ducati and on the 17th lap the Texan passed the Italian to take over fourth.
From there it was clear sailing and Gerloff ended up some four seconds clear of the factory Ducati Panigale V4 R and 8.6 seconds behind six-time World Champion Jonathan Rea, who narrowly lost out to Topak Razgatlioglu in their battle for second.
Victory today went to Aruba.it Racing Ducati’s Scott Redding, the Brit’s second race win in a row. Redding was just .877 ahead of Razgatlioglu at the finish.
Rea leads the championship over Redding, 73-67. Gerloff is fifth in the title chase, nine points behind Alex Lowes who crashed in today’s race.
