10 reasons not to miss Sunday’s WorldSBK Race 2 at TT Assen
Find out all the stats ahead of race two at the iconic TT Circuit Assen
1. Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) will have the chance in Race 2 to be the first rider with 13 wins on any given track, after winning Race 1 and matching Carl Fogarty’s record of twelve Assen wins, the last of which came back on the 5th of September 1999.
2. If Rea gets the win in Race 2, it would be his 17th double, which is an all-time record. He currently shares the top spot with Carl Fogarty and Troy Bayliss.
3. Lastly for Rea, so far he has climbed on the podium 15 times at Assen. Heading into Race 2, only one rider in WorldSBK history has been able to climb on the podium 16 times on a given track – Troy Corser, at Misano.
4. Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) has climbed on the podium in all of the last five races at Assen, but he is yet to get a win at the legendary circuit. If he manages a sixth successive podium here, it will be the 20th straight race for Ducati on the podium, a string that started in Misano Race 2 last year.
5. Davies has made a habit this year of climbing from the back: after Sunday’s Race 2 he will have started the last seven races of 2018 from row 3 or further behind. He has still managed two wins and five total podiums in that time.
6. WorldSBK is the only category taking place this weekend at TT Circuit Assen that hasn’t seen a Dutch-born rider winning at home. While riders from the Netherlands have won in WorldSSP, WorldSSP300 and STK1000, the best result the Assen crowd has seen in WorldSBK was precisely Michael van der Mark’s (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team) second place in Race 1 this year.
7. Speaking of van der Mark, with his second-place finish yesterday, he has already finished on the podium twice in seven races this season. With that, he already equals his podium tally from 2017.
8. Top independent rider Xavi Fores (Barni Racing Team) recorded his 3rd career front row in qualifying, starting third, his best career result. By finishing Race 1 in fifth, Fores maintained his record of having scored points in all his races in Assen (7 out of 7) – and will hope to extend that record on Sunday with a first WorldSBK win.
9. Kawasaki have now scored points in the last 149 races of the championship. Their longest string of races in the points is 200, from Sugo 1990/1 to Laguna Seca 1998/2.
10. Roman Ramos (Team GoEleven Kawasaki) is known for his consistency: in Race 1 he nailed his 19th straight race in the points, improving his previous record of 18 set from Donington/1, 2016 to Buriram/2, 2017.
