Table of contents:
The Superbike World Championship is not over. Toprak Razgatlioglu won his first race of the season beating a Michael Ruben Rinaldi who had been dominating all weekend. But the Yamaha rider pulled off his courage to get just 20 points behind Jonathan Rea overall.
The current champion leaves Misano with three third places, although having saved worse things, especially in the long race on Saturday. He increases the lead over Scott Redding, his main theoretical rival, but now he will have to take a look at what Razgatlioglu is doing, which is very serious.
Bautista finishes eighth with the Honda CBR1000RR-R
In the Superpole Race the victory went to Michael Ruben Rinaldi, not without a fight because he had to overtake Toprak Razgatlioglu on the final laps to score his second win of the weekend. Third place for Jonathan Rea, who continues to score points against Scott Redding, his main rival for the title.
At the start of the long race Rinaldi stayed first, but Razgatlioglu made a very forced overtaking attempt that allowed Rea to pass them. both to get ahead. Rinaldi was trying to get the bike into him as soon as possible. In the second lap the Ducati Panigale V4 R was already in command, but Rea did not give up and gave it back.
Rinaldi regained the lierato on the third lap, but the group of five did not break apart, with Redding and Alex Lowes holding on at the end of it. Razgatlioglu also gave an account of Rea because he did not want Rinaldi to leave In solitary. The Turk is tired of finishing second or third, as he has said in several statements.
Mechanical problems for Chaz Davies, who was retiring from the race. Razgatlioglu was very aggressive, so much so that he overtook Rinaldi with thirteen laps to go, which gave him more jump to the race, because Rea also harassed the Italian. The Yamaha one definitely went with more than a second of advantage.
Redding was totally off the hook, and the top three kept their distance. Everyone expected a possible drop in the tires, because Rinaldi was closing the gap with Razgatlioglu, but he was quite balanced. The only change was that Garrett Gerloff was chasing Lowes for fifth.
Victory for Razgatlioglu, the first of the season, ahead of Rinaldi, who is left without a triplet, and Rea. The Turk from Yamaha gets into the fight for the title as he falls within 20 points of Rea in the general classification. Fourth position for Redding and eighth for Álvaro Bautista with the Honda CBR1000RR-R.
