Toprak Razgatlioglu is the man of records and continues to dominate far and wide: on Sunday morning in Most, the championship leader imposed himself in the Superpole Race, stringing together his ninth consecutive success and sealing victory number 50 in the Superbike World Championship.
The BMW rider outwits Nicolò Bulega, who got off to a great start and took the lead in the early stages of the race. Toprak, however, doesn’t let the opportunity to win again slip away and quickly gets rid of the Ducati rider to triumph with an advantage of almost 4 seconds over rookie. After initially being third because he was overtaken by both Aruba.it Racing Ducati riders, the Turk returns to the front and leaves his two teammates to fight for the two podium positions.
This is where disaster strikes: on the final lap, Alvaro Bautista attempts an attack on Bulega, forcing him to go wide at Turn 1. The rookie makes a dive into the gravel, but manages to get back on track, while the Spaniard loses control of his Ducati and slides, ending his Superpole Race in the gravel. He tries to get back on track, but at the end of the final lap he pits without crossing the finish line.
Sunday morning not particularly fruitful for Bautista, who will start Race 2 from behind. The disaster of the reigning world champion, however, favors Alex Lowes, who redeems himself from yesterday’s fall and climbs onto the third step of the podium, confirming the great feeling with the Kawasaki. At the foot of the podium we find Danilo Petrucci, who seems to feel increasingly at ease with the Ducati of the Barni team. Despite the pain still present, the Terni rider is the best of the independent riders and precedes Remy Gardner.
The Australian is once again the first of the Yamaha riders and closes the Superpole Race in fifth position ahead of Andrea Locatelli, sixth. Second among the independent riders is Andrea Iannone, who on his debut on this track conquers the seventh position, 7.5 seconds behind the winner Razgatlioglu. The Goeleven team rider precedes the other official BMW of Michael van der Mark, while closing the top 10 we find Jonathan Rea, ninth, and Michael Ruben Rinaldi, tenth.
Another complicated race for Axel Bassani, who does not go beyond 13th position. Things went worse for Scott Redding and Alex Lowes, who fell in the early stages of the race. The Marc VDS team rider was the protagonist of a violent fall in which he suffered a fracture of his left collarbone, while the standard-bearer Bonovo was not affected, but was forced to retire from the race.
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