An elbow to elbow battle in Race 2 amongst the top three contenders for the 2021 World Superbike Championship (WSBK) sees Toprak Razgatlioglu of Pata Yamaha and incumbent six-time consecutive WSBK champion Jonathan Rea tie at the top of the championship standings. With 311 points each, Rea, the 34 year old Irishman, and Razgatlioglu, age 24 from Turkey, have six rounds left to campaign in the championship.
Meanwhile, Scott Redding of Aruba.it Racing Ducati came in third behind Razgatlioglu and Rea, bringing his championship points total to 273, putting him within fighting distance of the leaders. Something of a disappointment for Redding as he managed to take the win in the weekend’s Race 1 with a convincing victory over Rea, pipping the Irishman to second place and relegating the Turk to third.
In Race 2, Pata Yamaha stamped its dominance with Razgatlioglu and team mate Andrea Locatelli leading into the first corner. With the race shortened by one lap due to techinical difficulties with the GRT Yamaha WorldSBK YZF-R1 of Kohta Nozane, the front group was made up of Locatelli and Razgatlioglu with Rea tucking in behind his team mate Alex Lowes following the lead pair.
Unfortunately BMW Motorrad’s Tom Sykes ran wide in the first few laps, pushing them down the pecking order. In the closing stages of the race, Rea managed to save a front-end slide but allowing Redding to close the gap.
By lap 19, Rea and Redding were side-by-side when Redding took advantage of Rea’s mistake in turn 13, pulling off an overtaking move on the outside that gave him the lead exiting turn 14. At the finish of Race 2, it was Razgatlioglu, Redding and Rea in first, second and third, while Locatelli, Sykes and Lowes took the rest of the points positions in fourth fifth and sixth, respectively.
The post 2021 WSBK: Razgatlioglu and Rea tie for WSBK points appeared first on Paul Tan's Automotive News.
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