Superbike Navarre Race 2: Razgatlioglu wins and comes back to Rea’s level!

The Turkish driver won the last race held at the Navarre circuit, while his rival for the title pocketed third position behind Scott Redding.

Back to back, this is how the two championship leaders set off from the Navarre circuit this Sunday at the end of Race 2. Toprak Razgatlioglu in fact won while Jonathan Rea had to settle for third place at the finish, Scott Redding separating the two men.

It is true that the Turkish driver, who was nine points behind the Northern Irishman before the start of this last Sunday race in Spain, started this time from the first row of the grid, the result of his third place acquired during the Superpole Race run this morning.

Starting grid Race 2:

 

Always as aggressive when braking, the Yamaha rider was able to take the lead at the end of the first lap, after a great fight against Redding and Rea. The Ducati rider, who had nevertheless achieved the holeshot, was unable to hold Rea at the start of the course, leaving the latter to gain second position, and complete freedom to pursue Razgatlioglu.

 

Razgatlioglu untouchable

Unfortunately for the Kawasaki rider, this chase came to an end, with him essentially having to concentrate his efforts during the second part of the race on countering the rise in power of Redding, whose pace was only progressing at thread of turns.

Under pressure, Rea made a small mistake for the first time six laps from the goal, without consequences. But the defending champion made another mistake two laps later, giving Redding the opportunity to rush into the gap to grab second place.

 

 

From then on, the top 3 would no longer change until the finish, Andrea Locatelli once again finishing in fourth place, ahead of Tom Sykes and Alex Lowes. Michael Ruben Rinaldi and Michael van der Mark finished in seventh and eighth positions, while the top 10 was completed by Álvaro Bautista and Axel Bassani.

We then find Tito Rabat and Jonas Folger in 11th and 12th places, ahead of the French Christophe Ponsson (who signs his best result of the season to date) and Lucas Mahias, and Leandro Mercado who completes the top 15. For Mahias, he This is an unexpected result in the sense that it went through all the stages even before the start of the event, marked by an accelerated start procedure due to a problem on Kohta Nozane's Yamaha which prevented the competitors from setting off as soon as the warm-up lap was completed.

The deserving French

Mahias, also the victim of a technical problem with his machine, should also have started from the pit lane like the Japanese, but tried everything by rejoining the grid at the start. A maneuver which was not to the taste of the Race Direction, who did not fail to sanction the Montois with two long laps. Despite this, the 2017 Supersport World Champion led a race full of determination to take the two points for 14th place at the checkered flag.

Finally, note that the start of the race was marked by the collision between Chaz Davies and Garrett Gerloff, the former losing the front of his machine, which would end up under the wheels of the American's Yamaha. Leon Haslam was also forced to retire following a crash a few laps later.

 

Superbike Navarre – Race 2 Results:

Classification credit: WorldSBK.com