WorldSBK: Razgatlioglu beats Rea to sprint race win in Magny-Cours epic

Race day for round seven of the 2021 Superbike World Championship began with the Superpole Race for the WSBK riders. Jonathan Rea started from pole position as he sought his sixth Superpole Race win of the season.

It was Rea who made the holeshot, reversing the outcome into turn one of yesterday, when Toprak Razgatlioglu won the race to the first turn. Despite a challenge from Razgatlioglu at turn five, Rea was able to offer a strong rebuttal, and the reigning World Champion led the opening lap.

Razgatlioglu, though, repeated the move of lap one on the second tour, passing Rea at the Adelaide Hairpin to take the lead. 

Initially, Alex Lowes, who was able to pass Andrea Locatelli for third place at turn 14 on the opening lap, was able to go with the two leaders, but after just three or four laps the pace became unbearable for the #22. 

That left just Razgatlioglu and Rea to decide the outcome of the race, with both setting pace which was far superior to the rest for the majority of the race, with lap records coming from the pair of them throughout.

Razgatlioglu held the lead for most of the 10 laps, but Rea remained in contention onto the final lap. 

The most obvious overtaking spot, turn five, was ruled out for the #1, as Razgatlioglu was out of reach and too strong on the brakes in that part of the track. But Rea was able to get a good run through the 180-degree corner, and was able to put a tough move on his championship rival on the entry to the Imola Chicane. Both ran wide, but were able to stay between the white lines, so the battle continued. 

Razgatlioglu had made the move to win his first WorldSBK race at the Chateau d’Eau corner on the final lap in a duel with Rea in 2019. But the move Rea had made at the Imola Chicane meant the #54 was not close enough to repeat the overtake of two years ago. Instead, it came down to the Lysee corner, and Razgatlioglu made a late move on the inside of Rea to reclaim the lead. It was tough, but perfectly clean. Rea tried to respond into the final chicane, but Razgatlioglu was able to hold on to take his second win of the weekend, and third in succession. 

This was arguably the best race of the season, with both Razgatlioglu and Rea a step above the rest of the field, and pushing – at the very least – to the absolute limit of their respective packages. Although it was Razgatlioglu who came out on top, Rea’s competitiveness relative to Saturday’s race can be of encouragement for the Northern Irishman, who, together with his team, seems to have made a step with the bike setup compared to Race One. 

In third place was Alex Lowes, who took his first top three since Race One at Donington Park, which makes up for his mistake while in third place yesterday. 

Andrea Locatelli took his sixth fourth place in the last seven races, 1.3 seconds adrift of Lowes. Behind the Italian was Scott Redding, who was better than yesterday but still in significant deficit to his championship rivals. The Briton completed the top five, ahead of Michael van der Mark, Alvaro Bautista, Chaz Davies and Leon Haslam who took the final point in ninth, and the final spot on the front three rows for Race Two. 

Michael Ruben Rinaldi completed the top 10, ahead of 11th-placed Axel Bassani; while Tom Sykes dropped from third on the grid to 12th at the flag. Garrett Gerloff was 13th, ahead of Lucas Mahias, Tito Rabat, Kohta Nozane, Christophe Ponsson, Jonas Folger, Leandro Mercado and Loris Cresson who was the final classified finisher in 20th. Isaac Vinales was the only retirement.

EDIT: During the WorldSSP300 race, which took place after the third and final WorldSBK race of the weekend, a decision taken by the WorldSBK Stewards was announced to demote by one position Toprak Razgatlioglu in the results of the Superpole race. This decision was taken in response to an appeal by the Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK, who claimed that Razgatlioglu had exceeded track limits on the final lap. But, it is notable that, although the Superpole race sets the grid for the second full-length WSBK race of the weekend, the results of that second full-length race have, at the time of writing at least, not been changed.