There is the seal of Toprak Razgatlioglu on the first race of the Superbike weekend at Magny-Cours. After many successes by Alvaro Bautista, if not for a setback in Most last July, for the first time during this championship the Turk was able to impose himself in Race-1, passing the finish line with around two and a half seconds ahead of Michael Ruben Rinaldi at the end of an intense battle.
The Yamaha rider proved to be aggressive from the very first meters after the traffic lights went out, taking advantage of poleman Garrett Gerloff’s moment of difficulty to attack at the hairpin and climb into third position, with the intent of putting the two Ducati Arubas in his sights. In fact, only a few seconds later, at the braking point of the penultimate corner, Rinaldi overtook the Panigale V4R which allowed him to quickly climb to second place behind Bautista, who had been able to take the lead in turn one straight away. after departure.
On one of his favorite tracks, a wild Razgatlioglu needed just a few minutes to overtake even Bautista with a nice maneuver, with the hope of immediately attempting an escape which, however, did not materialize. In fact, despite the technical problem that momentarily slowed down the reigning world champion, forcing him to recover from the back, it was Rinaldi’s other Ducati that battled the Turkish rider, bringing a V4R back to the lead of the race after about fifteen laps from the end.
Michael Ruben Rinaldi, Aruba.it Racing Ducati
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
From that moment on, the two protagonists of the race started a nice duel where there was no shortage of overtaking and counter-overtaking. Razgatlioglu attempted a braking attack at the hairpin on several occasions, but was unable to find the decisive attack, given that Rinaldi was always able to get back into the lead by focusing on acceleration at the exit. The overtaking then came seven laps from the checkered flag, with the Yamaha rider able to exploit the inside trajectory to overtake his rival at the fast chicane 12-13. Once over the obstacle, Razgatlioglu immediately opened a safety gap which led him to cross the finish line with an advantage of around two and a half seconds.
Jonathan Rea takes the third step of the podium with Kawasaki, with three different manufacturers in the top three positions. The Briton’s race got complicated immediately in the first few meters when, after attempting to overtake Gerloff on the outside at the hairpin during the first lap, he lost his bike and slipped to sixth place, also behind teammate Lowes. Also taking advantage of the problem suffered by Bautista, the driver of the Japanese manufacturer managed to climb up the rankings to a position valid for the podium, however suffering from excessive sliding of the rear. Once his pace had stabilized, Rea then managed to keep his third place stable by pulling ahead of his rivals behind him, even if it proved impossible to keep up with the pace of the two leading riders.
Fourth place went to the poleman of the day, Garrett Gerloff, about a second and a half behind the British Kawasaki rider. The American had a difficult race in the first few metres, losing several positions in the space of a few seconds, thus finding himself stuck in traffic. Behind the BMW driver it is worth mentioning the excellent fifth place of Danilo Petrucci, protagonist of a good fight with Andrea Locatelli which ended just four laps from the end. The Italian from Yamaha preceded Scott Redding by just one tenth, who waited for a long time, observing the duel to study his opponents, but without being able to take advantage of it.
Alvaro Bautista, Aruba.it Racing Ducati
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Eighth place for Alex Lowes with the second Kawasaki which, despite a good start, suffered the deterioration of the Pirelli tires, slipping back in the standings. Philipp Oettl and Alvaro Bautista rounded out the top ten, with the Spaniard forced to make a long comeback from the back after a technical problem encountered in the first laps of the race: the Ducati rider nevertheless showed an impressive pace, not far from that of the leaders in the moments in which he was able to ride in free air, recovering up to tenth position.
Also in the points are Dominique Aegerter, Xavi Vierge with the first Honda, Loriz Baz who slipped back despite a good sixth place on the grid, Iker Lecuona and Remy Gardner. Both Lorenzo Baldassari was forced to retire due to a fall while in sixteenth position and Bradley Ray, in his case forced to park the bike in the pit lane due to a technical problem with three laps to go.
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