WSBK Superbike San Juan Race 2: Redding wins, Rea takes points from Razgatlıoğlu

The second Superbike race in Argentina gave rise to a scenario full of twists and turns, marked by numerous overtakes in the leading trio. Scott Redding finally won the event, while behind him Jonathan Rea won a terrible showdown against Toprak Razgatlıoğlu.

They won't have given each other any gifts. Not only Toprak Razgatlıoğlu and Jonathan Rea, but also Scott Redding, a real free electron since the start of this Argentinian weekend on the San Juan Villicum circuit.

Starting from second place on the grid (the Ducati rider had indeed finished on the second step of the podium a little earlier in the day during the Superpole Race), the Englishman first took part in a high-intensity fight with the two contenders for the title this season, before taking advantage of this duel to escape halfway through the race and slowly but surely widen the gap at the front of the race.

 

 

Behind him, Razgatlıoğlu and Rea engaged in a battle of titans, the true peak of their fight this season, to gain second place. For the Kawasaki rider, it was imperative to remain in contention for the title at the next round, in Indonesia next month.

Starting grid for Race 2:

Anthology of overtaking between Rea and Razgatlıoğlu

Defeated by his Turkish rival during the first two events of the weekend (the Northern Irishman had given his opponent no less than ten points in the championship), Rea flexed his muscles to beat the Yamaha rider to the finish, at the cost of multiple overtaking and other trajectory crossings, particularly in the sequence of turns 8 and 9 which punctuate the long return straight of the Argentine route.

In the end, it was indeed the six-time World Champion who won his case, but the latter only gained four points from his opponent overall, and is therefore now 30 points behind him as the race approaches. final round of the season.

 

Summary of the results of the 2019 edition:

WSBK Superbike San Juan	October 2019	October 2021
FP1	1'45.191 Álvaro Bautista	1'38.524 Toprak Razgatlıoğlu
FP2	1'43.614 Álvaro Bautista	1'37.872 Toprak Razgatlıoğlu
FP3	1'39.651 Toprak Razgatlıoğlu	1'37.239 Toprak Razgatlıoğlu
Super poles	1'40.771 Álvaro Bautista	1'37.617 Scott Redding
Race 1	Bautista, Rea, Razgatlıoğlu	Razgatlıoğlu, Rea, Rinaldi
Warm up	1'37.784 Jonathan Rea	1'37.719 Garrett Gerloff
Superpole race	Rea, Bautista, Razgatlıoğlu	Razgatlioglu, Redding, Rea
Race 2	Rea, Davies, Razgatlıoğlu	Redding, Rea, Razgatlıoğlu
All time lap record	1'37.784 Jonathan Rea	1'37.239 Toprak Razgatlıoğlu

Bassani still impresses

Behind the top 3, Axel Bassani again delivered a major performance to take fourth place. The Italian even briefly invited himself to the battle for the podium, but changed his mind, already very happy to once again gain points from his rival for the title of best independent driver this season, Garrett Gerloff.

The American, for his part, was unable to do better than eighth and therefore saw his transalpine opponent fall back to 14 points in the championship, and was undoubtedly hoping for a better result after having achieved the best time during the warm up.

Behind Bassani, we find another Italian in the person of Michael Ruben Rinaldi, who is ahead of Michael van der Mark and Andrea Locatelli at the finish line. Chaz Davies and Álvaro Bautista complete the top 10, ahead of Leon Haslam and Tito Rabat. Isaac Viñales, Kohta Nozane and Leandro Mercado won the last points at stake in Race 2, while Christophe Ponsson finished the event in 17th position.

 

Superbike San Juan – Race 2:

Classification credit: WorldSBK.com