Barcelona was a Saturday worth remembering for Toprak Razgatlioglu, because on the same day the BMW rider took his first pole position and his first victory aboard BMW in the World Superbike Championship. It didn't take him long, therefore, to shut the mouths of all those who had harshly criticized him when he had chosen to go and defend the colors of the German company, believing that he was only doing it for money and not having seen an interesting project .
A significant success also for the way in which he matured, because until a few laps from the end everything seemed set for yet another Ducati-branded victory with Nicolò Bulega. The Italian driver had been very cautious at the start, perhaps to try to manage the tires (the key on the Catalan track), but in the space of a few laps he moved from sixth to first position, finding a nice overtaking right against Toprak and also taking advantage of the fall of Sam Lowes who had taken the lead and immediately boarded.
Once in the lead, the Ducati rider gave the impression of having no major problems in taking home his second victory of the season, widening his lead over his pursuers to over five seconds. All this while Razgatlioglu also handed over second position to an attacking Andrea Iannone.
Once the halfway point of the race, however, it was quite clear that the Turkish rider's strategy was just a strategy, because when the pace of all the riders around him started to collapse, he suffered a much smaller drop. First he got rid of Iannone and then he started to see Bulega's Panigale V4 getting bigger and bigger in front of him.
Right on the last lap he managed to reunite with the man from Reggio, finding the gap to slip past him at turn 5 and without leaving him the slightest space for a reply. A great joy for Toprak and inevitably a cold shower for Bulega, who however can console himself with the championship leadership gained by one point against Alex Lowes who was unable to do better than sixth place with his Kawasaki.
Completing the podium is the reigning world champion Alvaro Bautista, called to make a great comeback from the 14th place on the grid, after a qualifying which ended in 11th place and tainted by a penalty. Probably, if he had started further ahead, the Ducati Spaniard would have also been in the mix, as he was one of the fastest on the track in the second part of the race.
In fact, in the final he got the better of Andrea Iannone who, however, can be more than satisfied with how he fared in one of the toughest races of the season in terms of tire management. Which is not at all a given for someone like him who had been away from racing for four years. Ducati, therefore, placed three bikes in the first four positions, but then missed the big target.
Completing the top 5 is Andrea Locatelli's Yamaha, but for the Iwata manufacturer we must especially highlight yet another bad day for Jonathan Rea, who immediately went very long at the first braking point and then was forced to surrender at the end of the first lap. Speaking of Lowes' sixth place, in seventh position we find Danilo Petrucci, who seemed to be able to battle for the podium with Bautista and Iannone, but then he too crashed at the end.
Top 10 also for Dominique Aegerter, Michael van der Mark, who also collapsed in the last three laps after having been solidly fourth for a good part of the race with the second BMW, and for Axel Bassani. A little further back is Micheal Rinaldi, while the first Honda is only in 13th position, very far behind, with Iker Lecuona.
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