WorldSBK Donington Park Race 1 Results | Razgatlioglu back on top, Bautista down

Toprak Razgatlioglu gave his flagging title defence hopes a significant boost with a dominant victory in the first WorldSBK encounter of the weekend at Donington Park, while series leader Alvaro Bautista crashed out.

Returning to the scene of his first WorldSBK podium in 2018, Razgatlioglu snatched the hole-shot into Turn 1 from third on the grid and was never headed thereafter, the Yamaha rider multiplying his advantage over the 23 lap encounter to cross line more than seven seconds ahead of Jonathan Rea.

His second win of the season - but his first worth a full 25 points - the Turkish rider’s day was brightened further by Bautista’s failure to score after crashing out of second position on lap 16.

Staring down a 79-point deficit to Bautista at the top of the championship standings, Razgatlioglu came into the Donington Park weekend - Round 5 of the 2022 WorldSBK season - needing a brace of strong results to haul him back into the fight.

It was a determination he exuded off the line as he swept across Rea’s bow at Turn 1 to hold the lead. While the Kawasaki rider attempted to fight back later round the lap at the Esses, he’d find himself off line and slow on the exit.

Delaying him down to fifth place, it briefly promoted Alex Lowes into second before Bautista snatched back the position before the opening lap was completed.

However, with the kerfuffle allowing a small margin to open up between the chasing pack and Razgatlioglu up front, the Yamaha rider promptly made the most of the clear air to begin extending a lead he’d hold all the way to the chequered flag.

His cause was assisted by Bautista and Rea - having recovered to third - engaging in a boisterous round of block passes and apex stand-ups that lost them fistfulls of time to the leader up front.

Rea had seemingly gotten the job done with a pass on a wayward Bautista at Goddards on Lap 8, only to come under renewed attack from the regrouped Spaniard a few laps later.

Slipping by when Rea this time went wide at the tricky final left-hander on lap 15, Bautista managed just one more lap before he folded the front at the same spot. Marking his first DNF of the season, it is also the first time this year he hasn’t featured on the WorldSBK podium.

With Razgatlioglu too far in front to hunt down, Rea settled for a lonely but valuable second place as he slashed the margin to Bautista up front to 16 points. Razgatlioglu, meanwhile, is now 44 points adrift of the top.

With one of the big players out of contention, the fight for the final podium position fell to Scott Redding and Alex Lowes.

Having qualified a strong fourth, Redding negated his poor start to fight his way back up to fourth place on the BMW before inheriting third from Bautista. However, with his tyres fading he was reeled in again by Lowes, the pair engaging in an entertaining tussle before the Kawasaki man nosed ahead for his first podium since Magny-Cours last season.

Behind Redding, Axel Bassani assumed the honours as the highest-placed Ducati rider on the independent Motocorsa Racing machine, the Italian humbling his factory counterpart Michael Ruben Rinaldi in sixth.

Garrett Gerloff snatched seventh from Iker Lecuona on the final lap, with Loris Baz and Andrea Locatelli rounding out the top ten.

Elsewhere, Tarran Mackenzie picked up points on his WorldSBK debut with a competitive run to 14th, while Leon Haslam was 17th on the Pedercini Kawasaki and Peter Hickman on the FHO BMW was 22nd.

2022 WorldSBK Championship | Donington Park, UK | Race 1 RESULTS