WSBK Superbike Misano Race-2: Toprak Razgatlioglu refuels, BMW beats Ducati

The Turkish champion Toprak Razgatlıoğlu also dominated the second Superbike race at Misano, now just 2 points behind Nicolò Bulega, who limited his losses. The World Championship challenge starts from scratch.

De Paul Gozzi / Corsedimoto.com

Exactly halfway through the Superbike World Championship, we're starting from scratch, or almost. At Misano, the Ducati circuit where Nicholas Bulega flourished as an athlete, Toprak Razgatlioglu scored one of those superb hat tricks we've grown accustomed to. With the uncompromising BMW M1000RR, he charged like a maniac, squeezing his rival into a suffocating grip. Nicolò's misfortunes weighed on Ducati's record, but there's no denying that even without the crash at the first corner of the Sprint and the subsequent start from the fourth row in Race 2, El Turco would still have had the better of it. The stopwatch never lies, and in this case too, it delivered an unequivocal verdict.
In certain situations, when everything falls into place, Razgatlioglu becomes out of reach. Even for Bulega, who has improved enormously since last year. His lead in the World Championship has shrunk to just nine points. In other words, he's starting all over again, embarking on a second half of the season that promises to sparkle again.

Course 2: A boring procession
It was obvious that with Bulega hampered by the fourth row start, the final challenge wasn't even going to begin. Nic quickly pulled away from the pack, immediately following Alvaro Bautista who, for two very long laps, held fifth position. The Spaniard is out of the running for the 2026 factory Ducati, imagine if he hadn't made his teammate sweat. After getting rid ofAlvarito, the pursuer moved up the other positions to second place. Five of the remaining twenty-one laps had passed and Toprak was four seconds behind. It was game over, especially because the hare was running faster than the chaser. In fact, despite total control, Razgatlioglu extended his final lead to ten seconds. One imagined a Misano in fireworks, but in addition to Toprak, boredom won.

And the others ?
It's now a trend: Razgatlioglu and Bulega are doing a different sport. Even in race 2, the third, Álvaro Bautista, crossed the finish line almost fifteen seconds behind the unleashed Turk. It's not a technical issue, because the Ducati V4 is identical to that of the world leader, and managed by the same team. The Spaniard got the better of Andrea Locatelli, author of a beautiful weekend, Danilo Petrucci and the Honda ofIker LecuonaThe beauty of it is that BMW and Ducati also have fuel consumption restrictions, meaning they are one liter of gasoline per hour less than everyone else. And that's a good thing...

Next stop: Donington Park
The Superbike World Championship is now on a month-long hiatus: it will return to the track from July 13 to 15 at Donington Park, in the United Kingdom. This stop on the circuit where the championship was born in 1988 marks the beginning of the downhill phase of the calendar: six rounds contested, as many to run. The die is cast. It's time to hold on…

Misano Superbike Race 2 Standings:

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Paul Gozzi

Classification credit: WorldSBK.com

Superbike Misano Race-2