Spanish riders killed in California motorcycle race

However, Rea still maintains a 125 point lead at the top of the Championship standings. Rea’s third place is ironically his “worst” result of the season.

Bernat Martinez, of Alberic, Valencia, Spain, was transported from the raceway by ambulance to Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula (CHOMP) in Monterey, where he succumbed to his injuries. The Welshman led from start to finish as the Kawasaki teammates squabbled amongst themselves for second, Tom Sykes hanging on to defeat championship leader Jonathan Rea.

Aprilia Racing riders Jordi Torres and Leon Haslam were fourth and fifth, respectively, after a long and enthralling duel. They finished comfortably ahead of Ayrton Badovini (BMW Motorrad Italia) who had a lonely ride to 6th after failing to finish race one.

The Knighton-born rider outperformed team-mate Davide Giugliano by two tenths of a second to prevail with a best lap of one minute and 22.101 seconds.

It was a different story behind him, with Rea and Sykes battling each other for the remaining podium places.

Visibly faster than Sykes, Rea was all over the back of his team mate although he could never make that telling pass to take the chase to Davies.

Indeed, it would take, what Rea himself called, “aggressive” moves to get past his team-mate, but on the three occasions he did edge in front, Sykes had an immediate response to reclaim the position. He also had a good pace but I am sure I had a higher pace. We had a couple of warnings and I was just not able to stick with Chaz.

The event was tinged with sadness, however, with two riders losing their lives in the MotoAmerica Superbike race.