Donington WSBK: Razgatlioglu dominates, Bautista crashes out

Lining up third on the grid, Razgatlioglu made a characteristically quick start to jump Kawasaki duo Alex Lowes and Jonathan Rea to move into the lead under braking for Turn 1.

For much of the opening lap of the 23-lap contest, Razgatlioglu faced a stiff challenge from polesitter Rea, who was eager to make amends for his relatively poor start and find a way past the Turkish rider.

Rea tried to go around the outside of Razgatlioglu into the Fogarty Esses but lost momentum, slipping behind both teammate Lowes and Bautista’s Ducati in the process.

Rea would later get embroiled in a long battle with Bautista until his crash with nine laps to run, allowing Razgatlioglu to claim only his second victory of the season and reignite his bid for consecutive titles.

Rea had to settle for second spot on his home turf after leading the long runs in practice, the Ulsterman losing heaps of time to Razgatlioglu while battling with Bautista for second position after repassing both Honda’s Iker Lecuona and teammate Lowes on lap 2.

Rea made several unsuccessful attempts at overtaking the championship leader and even had to save himself from falling off the bike at the exit of the chicane, before a block pass on lap 7 at the final corner allowed him to move up to second.

A mistake at the same turn a few laps later did allow Bautista to briefly regain position, but Rea was back up to second when the championship leader suffered a rare crash on the very same Goddards left-hander and retired from the race.

The incident allowed Rea to cruise to second position, albeit over 6s down on Razgatlioglu, and significantly home in on Bautista’s points advantage in the riders’ standings.

Third place in the race went to Lowes, who repassed the upgraded BMW of Scott Redding to clinch his first podium finish since last year’s Superpole race at Magny-Cours.

Redding dropped to seventh on the opening lap but was able to take full advantage of a new swingarm on his BMW M1000RR to secure his best result of the season, missing out on a podium by just over two seconds.

Axel Bassani finished as the top independent rider in fifth on the Motocorsa Ducati, beating the sole remaining factory Panigale V4 R of Michael Ruben Rinaldi and the GRT Yamaha of Garrett Gerloff.

Lecuona briefly moved up to fourth place ahead of Rea on the opening lap but his Honda didn’t have the pace to stay near the front, the Spanish rookie eventually finishing eighth ahead of the Bonovo MGM BMW of Loris Baz.

Andrea Locatelli had a low-key outing en route to 10th, nearly half a minute-down on his race-winning teammate and over 10 seconds behind the satellite Yamaha of Gerloff.

He finished six seconds and four places ahead of reigning British Superbike champion Tarran Mackenzie and his McAMS-run wildcard Yamaha R1, who in turn beat fellow BSB champion Leon Haslam on the Pedercini Kawasaki.

Donington Park WSBK - Race 1 results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Laps	Gap
1	1	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Yamaha	23
2	65	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki	23	6.397
3	22	Alex Lowes	Kawasaki	23	9.499
4	45	Scott Redding	BMW	23	11.515
5	47	Axel Bassani	Ducati	23	12.820
6	21	Michael Ruben Rinaldi	Ducati	23	14.482
7	31	Garrett Gerloff	Yamaha	23	17.127
8	7	Iker Lecuona	Honda	23	17.438
9	76	Loris Baz	BMW	23	24.903
10	55	Andrea Locatelli	Yamaha	23	28.498
11	5	Philipp Oettli	Ducati	23	31.467
12	44	Lucas Mahias	Kawasaki	23	33.514
13	97	Xavi Vierge	Honda	23	33.647
14	95	Tarran Mackenzie	Yamaha	23	34.870
15	91	Leon Haslam	Kawasaki	23	44.961
16	37	Illia Mykhalchyk	BMW	23	45.205
17	35	Hafizh Syahrin	Honda	23	52.808
18	29	Luca Bernardi	Ducati	23	53.315
19	3	Kohta Nozane	Yamaha	23	54.779
20	50	Eugene Laverty	BMW	23	55.987
21	2	Roberto Tamburini	Yamaha	23	56.072
22	10	Peter Hickman	BMW	23	1'00.554
23	52	Oliver Konig	Kawasaki	23	1'07.239
	19	Alvaro Bautista	Ducati	16
	23	Christophe Ponsson	Yamaha	13
	36	Leandro Mercado	Honda	6
View full results