Yamaha’s Toprak Razgatlioglu took a 25-point chunk out of Jonathan Rea’s WorldSBK championship lead when he took the victory in race one at Most as the reigning champion crashed twice.
Rea was in a scrap with the young Turk for second but lost the front at turn one and then went down again at turn 20 while Razgatlioglu went on to catch and pass Scott Redding for the win at the penultimate corner.
The tense last lap, in which pass and re-pass was made, saw Razgatlioglu come from way back and take Redding’s planned line into the penultimate corner, scoring a win that took him to within 12 points Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team).
Redding was clearly dis-chuffed with the nature of the pass and said in parc ferme that if that is the way the Yamaha man wants to play, then he will play that way too.
The final podium place on offer behind Razgatlioglu and Redding was taken by Razgatlioglu’s suddenly competitive team-mate, Andrea Locatelli (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Team), some 13 seconds behind.
In fourth place the factory Ducati of Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) held off the privateer and top independent rider, Axel Bassani (MotoCorsa Racing Ducati). The top six was completed by slow starting but fast finishing Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yamaha).
Alvaro Bautista (HRC Honda) was seventh and Leon Haslam (HRC Honda) eighth. After all the worry about the first chicane Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad) and Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team) were the two to outbrake themselves on lap one and run into the escape road.
Sykes rejoined from his fourth place grid spot to fifth in the race but he would slip back as the race carried on, to finish ninth. Tenth was Friday fast man and regular EWC rider Marvin Fritz (IXZ-YART Yamaha).
Lowes and Chaz Davies crashed out at the same time at the same corner but in separate incidents.
