Toprak Razgatlioglu lived up to his imperious reputation at the Motul Czech Round with a dominant victory in Race 1 well ahead of an injured Nicolo Bulega, whose effort was remarkable after a highside in practice.
Despite losing his lead from pole position to Bulega at turn 1 on the 1st lap, Razgatlioglu was quick enough to stick with his Ducati rival as the race developed. Within just a handful of laps, the BMW rider muscled his was back past at turn 1 to assert a lead that he would stretch to 6 seconds by the end of the 22-lap race in Most.
Bulega suffered a horrific highside in practice on Friday and was thankfully declared to fit to continue competing in the Czech Republic. Second place while still recovering from his crash was a solid effort at a track that is known to be one of Razgatlioglu’s strongest.
Despite the BMW’s comfortable victory on Saturday in the Czech Republic, the second factory Ducati of Alvaro Bautista had some scintillating pace as he fought through from towards the back of the grid. The 40-year-old underperformed in qualifying with 10th place and then had to slow up going through the tight right-left at turns 1 and 2.
Andrea Locatelli and Michael van der Mark crashed out as the field concertinaed up behind Bautista, who had to slam on the brakes. Once he had recovered from the chaos, Bautista started to unleash laptimes that were second only to Razgatlioglu and he eventually recovered to 5th.
Had the race been another lap longer, that might well have been P4. Bautista had caught Sam Lowes at the end of the penultimate lap and passed him into turn 1 on the final lap before just running out of time to snatch 4th from the other Lowes brother – Alex.
The Lowes brothers had contested 4th from the very start of the race but were unable to challenge Danilo Petrucci on the satellite Barni Ducati. Petrucci’s race was a comfortable ride to 3rd, not challenged behind and unable to trouble the top 2.
Unfortunately, Petrucci’s chief independent rival – Andrea Iannone – was declared unfit to race. Behind the top 6 came Iker Lecuona, whose teammate Xavi Vierge had a long battle with Yari Montella for 7th but came off worse.
Jonathan Rea ran as high as 6th but settled in 10th as the race progressed, with the Northern Irishman’s future the topic of debate after an underwhelming stint with Yamaha. This was the best result for Yamaha, although Bahattin Sofouglu had a strong ride to 15th that might have been slightly better if he had not been penalised for cutting turn 1 and being docked with a long lap penalty.
Heading into Sunday’s action at the Motul Czech Round, Razgatlioglu will be confident of securing another triple-victory. Bautista will also be confident of a strong showing in the Tissot Superpole race to put himself in a better position for Race 2.
RACE 1 RESULTS
Feature Image Credit: WorldSBK
