WSBK Superbike Jerez Race 1: Razgatlioğlu wins after suspense against Rea

The Turkish driver won his ninth victory this season after a tough battle with Jonathan Rea, who held his own and held the lead for most of the race. The podium is completed by Scott Redding.

When the lights went out, Toprak Razgatlioğlu preserved his first position without having to exert his talent at the first corner, ahead of Jonathan Rea and Michael Ruben Rinaldi. The Turkish driver was nevertheless caught during the first loop after a slight deviation in trajectory by his Northern Irish opponent, who seized the first position and therefore endeavored to defend the latter in the face of multiple attacks from his rival from at Yamaha.

It must be said that the six-time World Champion revealed treasures of ingenuity to maintain the leadership, while Razgatlioğlu increased the heavy braking behind him to try to regain the upper hand. Sometimes to excess, the two men narrowly missed going to the mat at Dry Sack in the seventh lap, when the Turk poorly negotiated a deceleration, coming to hook the rear of Rea's Kawasaki.

 

Summary of the results of the 2020 edition:

WSBK Superbike Jerez	July / August 2020	September 2021
FP1	1'40.249 Loris Baz	1'40.074 Toprak Razgatlioğlu
FP2	1'40.325 Michael Ruben Rinaldi	1'39.671 Jonathan Rea
FP3	1'39.639 Michael van der Mark	1'39.461 Toprak Razgatlioğlu
Super poles	1'38.736 Scott Redding	1'38.512 Toprak Razgatlioğlu
Race 1	Redding, Rea, Razgatlioğlu	Razgatlioglu, Rea, Redding
Warm up	1'39.535 Jonathan Rea	1'39.668 Michael Ruben Rinaldi
Superpole race	Rea, Redding, Van der Mark	Canceled
Race 2	Redding, Davies, Razgatlioğlu
All time lap record	1'38.736 Scott Redding

 

An incident fortunately with no other consequence than widening the trajectories of the two contenders for victory, while allowing their closest adversaries to temporarily get closer to the race lead.

Andrea Locatelli and Scott Redding in fact left their mark on the two leaders for a few laps, the two men who had benefited a little earlier from Rinaldi's retirement following a fall in turn 3 on the fifth lap.

 

Surprise attack by Razgatlioğlu

But it was said that victory would be decided between Rea and Razgatlioglu. Unable to regain the advantage at the heaviest braking of the circuit, the Dry Sack corner (also called the “Pedrosa hairpin”), the Yamaha rider went all out on the 14th lap by attempting a surprise attack on the approach of the first turn.

 

 

Here again, we came very close to an accident, the two men jostling for the entire radius of the turn, but this time Razgatlioglu achieved his goals and came out ahead of the turn. The number 54 then had to successfully counter his rival's response throughout the lap, securing first place until the checkered flag.

The gaps subsequently widened, and the hierarchy in the leading quartet no longer changed, Redding completing the top 3 after overtaking Locatelli in the final moments, who arrived in fourth position.

Sixth place for Baz

Fifth place went to Álvaro Bautista, who put in a great performance and confirmed his return to form at the end of the season, following his return to the podium in Catalonia last week. The Spaniard is ahead of Loris Baz, who led an all-attack race to secure a deserving sixth place for his return to the category.

 

 

The Frenchman notably defeated Michael van der Mark after a long battle, a sign of his pugnacity. Axel Bassani finished in eighth place, ahead of Alex Lowes who was unable to keep up the pace in Race 1. The Englishman, qualified in second position on the grid, quickly fell down the hierarchy, quickly moving to eighth position, before barely managing to stay in the top 10, the latter being completed by Garrett Gerloff.

 

Superbike Jerez – Race 1:

Classification credit: WorldSBK.com