WorldSBK Misano Race 2 | Razgatlioglu reins in Rea with first win of season

Toprak Razgatlioglu gave his 2021 WorldSBK Championship title hopes a timely boost with his first win of the season at Misano, the Turk prevailing in a battle between himself and pre-race favourite Michael Ruben Rinaldi.

Yamaha rider Razgatlioglu came into the final race of the weekend with a record of six podiums but no wins in eight races, but he’d strike gold in the ninth race of the year with a spirited ride that sees him collect sixth career WorldSBK victory.

A somewhat unexpected outcome given Rinaldi’s dominant showing in Race 1 and the Superpole Race, indeed a Razgatlioglu win seemed even less likely when his Ducati rival muscled his way back to the front of the field on lap four.

Rinaldi had led off the line from pole position but slipped behind Rea when Razgatlioglu’s aggressive pass on lap one simply took them wide and opened the door for the Kawasaki man to get both in one.

However, while Rinaldi seemed poised to follow up his breakthrough wins with a hat-trick, he’d find a more persistent foe in Razgatlioglu who, having relieved Rea of second place, appeared to have the measure of the Ducati man on this occasion.

With the Ducati’s straight line speed advantage negating the Yamaha’s nimbleness in the bends, it would take an unconventional pass by Razgatlioglu into Turn 14 for him to grab the lead.

Having spent the weekend passing rather than being passed, the move appeared to check Rinaldi’s momentum as he found himself unable to respond to Razgatlioglu’s upturn of pace with a gap quickly appearing between the two.

Rinaldi eventually regained his rhythm as the race entered its final laps but while he’dd close the gap to Razgatlioglu, he couldn’t get close enough to deny the Pata Yamaha rider his first success of the year.

Victory means Razgatlioglu ends the weekend having outscored Rea - who was third once again - in each race, reducing the deficit to the Ulsterman to 20 points in the championship reckoning. 

Redding completed a brace of fourth place results on an unusually anonymous weekend for the Briton, one that leaves him 45 points adrift of the top spot in the standings.

Garrett Gerloff concluded a trying weekend with a fighting ride to fifth position on the GRT Yamaha having spent two days working himself back up the order following a crash in qualifying, the American getting the better of Alex Lowes in sixth with three laps remaining..

A breakthrough weekend for Motocorsa Racing  rookie Axel Bassani would see him add another seventh place result to his tally, beating factory riders Alvaro Bautista on the Honda, Yamaha’s Andrea Locatelli and Michael van der Mark, who rounded out the top ten on the BMW.

Lucas Mahias, Tom Sykes, Kohta Nozane, Tito Rabat and Eugene Laverty completed the points’ paying positions.

Elsewhere, Chaz Davies’ suffered a sweep of DNFs, the Welshman forced to pit his GoEleven Ducati having crashed out of Race 1 and the Superpole Race. Leon Haslam also ended a weekend to forget with a crash.

2021 WorldSBK Misano | Race 2 Results