Razgatlioglu scores 100th Yamaha win in Most superpole

Toprak Razgatlioglu defeated Jonathan Rea in a close race in the Superpole event at Most to give Yamaha its 100th victory in the World Superbike championship.

The 10-lap race on Sunday morning saw Razgatlioglu and Rea racing nose-to-tail for the majority of the time, but Rea’s forced skip in the gravel on the penultimate lap gave the former the advantage.

Alvaro Bautista’s championship lead was reduced by the Kawasaki rider to 27 points before the weekend’s last full-distance race by virtue of his good fortune in remaining upright and holding on to second place.

Similar to Saturday’s opening race, Razgatlioglu started ahead of Rea and seemed to be moving at a faster rate in the early going.

However, Rea never allowed his competitor to lead by more than a second, and beyond the halfway point, he quickly closed in to the point where, by the eighth lap, he was right on Razgatlioglu’s tail.

As a result, Rea was able to dive through on the inside at the right-hand Turn 15, but Razgatlioglu stayed close by and was able to overtake Rea as the last circuit began by braking for Turn 1.

Rea was too far away to repeat his Turn 15 maneuver that lap, but a stronger performance through the next two right-handers prepared him to overtake the lead at the start of the final lap under braking at Turn 1.

A few moments later, Razgatlioglu stormed back ahead at the peculiar location of the fast-moving Turn 4 left-hander, but Rea moved back in front as the duo neared Turn 15 due to a bad exit through Turn 13.

This time, however, Rea seemed to misjudge his braking and had to slog through the gravel, which allowed Razgatlioglu to win the race unopposed and earn his sixth victory of the year. However, due to the duo’s margin over third-placed Bautista, Rea was still able to place second.

Ducati’s Bautista was unable to match the top two riders’ speed and instead focused on holding off teammate Michael Ruben Rinaldi for the whole of the race.

Prior to Andrea Locatelli’s Yamaha and Iker Lecuona on the best of the Hondas, Axel Bassani, riding a Motocorsa Racing Ducati, made it three Ducatis in the top five.

While Garrett Gerloff earned the final point available in ninth place on the GRT Yamaha, Scott Redding dropped from seventh to fourteenth on the first lap before fighting his way back up to eighth place atop the BMW.

2022 WORLD SUPERBIKE AUTODROM MOST, CZECH REPUBLIC – SUPERPOLE RACE RESULTS