WorldSBK Misano Race 2: Toprak Razgatlioglu closes down on Rea

Toprak Razgatlioglu wins race 2 in Misano cutting Rea’s lead down to 20 points.

He’s done it again, Turkish hero Toprak Razgatlioglu takes more points from Jonathan Rea again this weekend beating the 6-time champion in all three races to cut his title lead down to 20 points putting Toprak well and truly into contention for the championship, it was a race originally led by Rea for the early laps before 2 x winner this weekend Michael Ruben Rinaldi was able to get past and lead the way as he eyed up a triple win for this weekend. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be for Rinaldi who was overtaken by Razgatlioglu who disappeared into the distance as the top 5 spread themselves apart.

Rinaldi did have a pop at Toprak late into the race closing down the gap to 0.4 seconds until Toprak used some of the extra 20% he had and opened up the gap once again forcing Rinaldi to take a second place ahead of Jonathan Rea.

Scott Redding was the fourth-placed rider completing a weekend of P4’s which is not what he would’ve wanted, it’s not the end of the world though as he sits in third overall with a 45 point gap to Rea who leads the standings, it could’ve been much much worse as we saw with his ex-teammate Chaz Davies who suffered 3 x DNF’s this weekend. Garrett Gerloff came home behind him in a strong P5 with a haul of 11 points to take fifth place in the championship, a great weekend for the American despite a pit lane and back-of-the-grid start.

Alex Lowes led Axel Bassani in P7, Bassani has had a stunning weekend taking a P8 in Race 1 and a P6 in the Superpole backing this up with a P7 in Race 2, hopefully this form can continue and isn’t just his home advantage coming into play, he overtook Alvaro Bautista late into the race to the dismay of the Spaniard.

Full Results – 

Featured image – WorldSBK