Thailand Sunday Guide
The latest stats and facts about Saturday's fastest riders ahead of Race 2 at Chang International Circuit
Championship leader: Jonthan Rea – (Tissot-Superpole: 1st, Race One: 1st)
41 career wins for Jonathan Rea: a clean sweep with pole, win, fastest race lap and the entire race in the lead. The last time he had recorded such a feat had been at this same track two years ago, in both races.
In qualifying, Rea recorded three straight pole positions for the first time in his career, after Losail last year and Phillip Island. With his 10th career pole, he entered the all-time top-10, going level with Frankie Chili and Carlos Checa.
In Race 2 Rea can claim his 50th podium for Kawasaki in 56 races with the team.
He has won the last three races: his only string of four came in 2015 in both races in Assen and Imola. Rea has five fastest race laps out of five races run in Buriram, on top of four race wins out of five.
Won the first three races of the season, like last year: only on two occasions in WorldSBK history has a rider won 4 or more straight races at the beginning of the year. It happened in 2002 with Troy Bayliss (first 6) and the following year with Neil Hodgson (first 9).
2nd in Championship: Chaz Davies – (Tissot Superpole: 5th, Race One: 2nd)
Best Buriram result for Chaz Davies in Race 1: 2nd, up from third recorded in Race 2 last year.
He climbed on the podium in the last 9 races: in race 2 he will try to ente the elite of eight riders who recorded strings of at least 10 podium finishes (Edwards, Rea, Corser, Fogarty, Bayliss, Hodgson, Polen, Eugene Laverty).
For the first time in his career he has finished 2nd in three straight races.
3rd in Championship: Tom Sykes – (Tissot Superpole: 2nd, Race One: 3rd)
Buriram remains one of the two current tracks where Tom Sykes didn’t record pole with Lausitz: like last year he was second in qualifying.
He was 2nd on the grid and 3rd in the race: the same result he obtained in the first Phillip Island race.
Secured his 86th career podium in Race 1 now only one shy of the 6th all-time place, held by Aaron Slight.
4th in Championship: Alex Lowes (Tissot Superpole: 4th, Race One: 6th)
Alex Lowes was sixth in all the first races held here.
5th in Championship: Marco Melandri (Tissot Superpole: 3rd, Race One: 4th)
For the first time since the Nurburgring-Magny Cours weekends back in 2012, Marco Melandri was able to record back-to-back front row qualifying spots (3 straight at the time).
Thanks to the new regulations, Melandri will enjoy his first start from pole in Race 2 after the 2011 Aragon round, the only time he qualified on pole in his career.
6th in Championship: Michael van der Mark (Tissot-Superpole: 6th, Race One: 5th)
In Race 2 he will enjoy his first front row start after exactly one year: in 2016 he was the polesitter in Buriram.
15th in Championship: Stefan Bradl (Tissot-Superpole: 16th, Race One: 10th)
First WorldSBK top-10 finish for Stefan Bradl in Race 1.
Other Notes:
Winners this season: Rea 3.
This was the 35th podium lockout for Great Britain in WorldSBK history.
In Race 1, a British rider won for the 17th consecutive race; this is the second longest run of consecutive race wins for British riders after the 24 successive wins recorded between Phillip Island/1 and Magny Cours/2 in 2015.
For the 22nd time Jonathan Rea, Chaz Davies and Tom Sykes shared the podium. In 12 of these, Rea won from Davies.
In Race 1, for the first time after 8 straight races, Ducati were unable to lead at least a lap.
Emphasising the British domination of WorldSBK is the fact that since the start of 2015, only two races have been won by non-British riders; Qatar/1, 2015 (maiden win for Jordi Torres) and Malaysia/2, 2016 (maiden win for Nicky Hayden). The other 53 races have been won by Rea (26), Davies (16), Sykes (9) and Leon Haslam (2).
For the third consecutive race, the first two at the flag were the same. Should another Rea/Davies finish occur in Race 2, it will be the first time since 2003, when in both Valencia and Phillip Island, the first two were Neil Hodgson and Ruben Xaus.