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  • WorldSBK: Championship lead finally changes as Razgatlioglu dominates Donington

    WorldSBK: Championship lead finally changes as Razgatlioglu dominates Donington

    Toprak Razgatlioglu has finally knocked Nicolo Bulega off the top of the World Superbikes championship lead in 2025 after a comfortable treble victory around Donington Park – a circuit he has now secured 12 victories at – as his Ducati nemesis had to settle for consecutive runner-up spots.

     

    Tissot Superpole Race

    Alex Lowes was declared unfit for Sunday’s action after his crash from the lead yesterday in Race 1.  In the slightly cooler conditions, the World Superbikes grid was hoping for a much cleaner race than yesterdays and things immediately went smoother as they all made it through turn 1 safely.

    Once again, Jonathan Rea shot through from the 2nd row of the grid to take 2nd place behind polesitter Razgatliolgu into Redgate on lap 1.  Bulega slid to 4th while Andrea Locatelli ran in 3rd.

    The only casualty on the 1st lap was Michael van der Mark, whose miserable season continues.  By the 2nd lap, Locatelli was back down to 5th as Bulega moved ahead to challenge Rea for 2nd and Sam Lowes then passed him for 4th.

    The battle between Rea and Bulega over allowed Razgatlioglu to stretch his lead out front as the Yamaha and Ducati ran the latter half of the Donington Park lap side-by-side on the 2nd lap.   The entertaining battle came to an end as Bulega prevailed and it became clear that Rea’s ultimate pace was not enough for him to secure a podium.

    Another great piece of racing occurred between Ryan Vickers and Yari Montella.  The latter made a mistake that lost him positions and the former had enough pace to fight within the crucial top-9 positions in the Tissot Superpole Race – which sets the grid for Race 2.

    Alvaro Bautista – like Sam Lowes – was making up for lost time from the previous day’s crash.  The Ducati rider passed Locatelli for 4th and secured a much better grid spot for Race 2 later in the day.

    Behind the top 6 and starting Race 2 where they finished were Danilo Petrucci, Garrett Gerloff and Andrea Iannone.  It seemed as if Vickers would be in the top 9, but on the 8th out of 10 laps he ran wide at the final corner.

    Iker Lecuona and Scott Redding both had technical issues that forced them out near the end while Locatelli made it past his teammate Rea at the chicane on the last lap.  Razgatlioglu’s 11th win around Donington Park cut the gap to Bulega to just 1 point ahead of the full distance race in the afternoon where he looked all set to snatch the lead in the championship.

    Tissot Superpole Race Results

    Image Credit: WorldSBK

    Race 2

    For the third time this weekend, Razgatlioglu made the hole shot to Redgate as Bulega suffered another sluggish getaway.  It was Sam Lowes, fresh from a home podium in the Tissot Superpole Race, who inherited 2nd place at the start.

    Bulega again fell as low as 5th and had to repass Locatelli, then set about his teammate Bautista who had also passed him in the early stages.  The Ducati teammates fight over 3rd then became a battle over 2nd as Sam Lowes crashed out at high speed at the start of lap 4 but thankfully without any obvious injuries like his brother Alex had a day earlier.

    After Bulega made it past Bautista the battles at the front of the grid settled down as Razgatlioglu had covered off any vulnerability by acing the start and settling into a comfortable rhythm.  There was however a battle for 4th featuring Locatelli, Petrucci, Iannone and Gerloff.

    Locatelli held a gap of just under a second to stay out of range from Petrucci as Iannone made a mistake at the chicane that dropped him out of the fight and behind Dominique Aegerter with 8 laps to go.  Vickers was a couple of seconds behind holding Remy Gardner at bay for 9th, both of whom had made up several spots since the start.

    Meanwhile, van der Mark had yet more mechanical trouble as his nightmare weekend in Donington continued with another retirement on Sunday as his teammate romped to a triple victory.  The only threat to Razgatlioglu was a track limits warning but it did not advance into a penalty.

    Bulega was in bigger trouble than the leader as his teammate Bautista put on a charge to close right up to him on the final lap.  Bulega just held on from Bautista as Razgatlioglu came home 3 seconds clear of the Ducatis and took the championship lead for the first time this year with a record 12th victory at the Prosecco DOC UK Round.

    Further down, Iannone made it back past Aegerter for 7th but Vickers fell backwards once again and came home 11th.  Scott Redding was behind in 12th, completely unable to replicate the pace he had shown in Race 1 the previous day while British wildcard Tommy Bridewell retired.

    Lecuona’s Honda finally held together for a race distance at the 3rd attempt this weekend to take 10th behind Gardner, then came the two Brits.  Vickers and Redding were the meat in a Honda sandwich as Montella and Rea trundled home as the last of the points scorers.

    Race 2 Results

    Image Credit: WorldSBK

    Feature Image Credit: WorldSBK

  • Six Of The Best: BSB Nuggets

    Six Of The Best: BSB Nuggets

    As the countdown to the 2020 Bennett’s British Superbike Season ticks towards the series roaring into life at Donington Park on August 7th, here are a few fun facts about the series’ history for you to wow your mates with down the pub when taking in a (socially distanced) cold one.  Each fact is relevant to its numerical position in the list.

    1. The Birth Of The Championship 

    The British Superbike Championship (BSB) can trace its origins back to 1988 at the start of the Superbike racing boom, which coincided with the inaugural World Superbike Championship season.

    The first BSB season was contested under Formula TT rules with race number one taking place in May 1988 at the Carnaby track on the site of a former RAF base near Bridlington in East Yorkshire. The first race winner was Darren Dixon who piloted his Suzuki RG500 all the way to the first championship title later in the year.

    Dixon went on to become a star in the field of sidecar racing, winning the World Sidecar Championship in 1995 and 1996. Dixon’s son Jake came second in the 2018 BSB Championship and now competes in Moto2.

    2. Always The Bridesmaid 

    Fact number two refers to the second position in the BSB Championship achieved by Chris ‘Stalker’ Walker four years on the trot between 1997 and 2000.

    Perhaps the most heartbreaking of these second placed finishes came at the climax of the 2000 season. With just three laps remaining in the final race, Walker led the pack only for his engine to fail on him. Despite trying desperately to reignite his machine, the mechanical problem allowed title rival Neil Hodgson to overtake Walker not just in the race but overall in the championship.

    3. Niall’s Treble Triumph 

    They say three is the magic number and it certainly was for Niall Mackenzie who became the most dominant rider of the 1990s, taking the BSB title three years in a row in 1996, 1997 and 1998.

    Riding on the spectacular Cadbury’s Boost Yamaha team—run by former Grand Prix rider Rob McElnea—Mackenzie racked up 14 wins over the course of the 1997 season. This record was only bettered by Leon Camier with 19 during his dominant 2009 title win, and only Shane Byrne has won more BSB titles than the super Scot.

    The Mackenzie name lives on as Niall’s sons Tarran and Taylor both now compete in the BSB and Superstock championships respectively.

    4. Champions From Afar 

    Over the course of British Superbike history, there have been four riders from outside the UK and Ireland who have finished the season top of the pile.

    The first was Australian Troy Bayliss who piloted his GSE Ducati 996 to the 1999 title before going on to win a hat-trick of championships in World Superbikes. Spaniard Gregorio Lavilla only got his ride aboard the Airwaves Ducati 999 just days before the start of the 2005 season as a substitute for the injured James Haydon, but ended the season as champion after surprising many and holding off the challenge of the Honda riders and team-mate Leon Haslam.

    Ryuichi Kiyonari became the first Japanese rider to claim the BSB title when he prevailed at the end of the dramatic 2006 championship decider at Brands Hatch. ‘Kiyo’ repeated the feat in 2007 and then after a spell in World Superbikes returned in 2010 to make it a hat-trick of titles all aboard the HM Plant Honda CBR1000RR FireBlade.

    The most recent foreigner to win the British championship was Australian King of the Cadwell Park Mountain Josh Brookes who won his first (and to date only) BSB crown aboard the Milwaukee Yamaha R1 in 2015.

    5. Rockin’ All Over The World 

    Five British Superbike riders (including two former champions) have gone on to win the World Superbike crown after making the move from the domestic series.

    As mentioned earlier, Troy Bayliss won the British title in 1999 before going on to add the World crown on three occasions in 2001, 2008 and 2009. Lancashire rider Neil Hodgson capitalised on Chris Walker’s dramatic engine failure in the final race of the 2000 season to win the BSB title aboard the GSE Ducati 996 (same bike ridden by Bayliss the previous year) and then conquered the world in 2003.

    James Toseland rode the Paul Bird-backed Vimto Honda VTR1000 during the 2000 BSB season before moving up to the World Championship, winning the global crown on two occasions in 2004 and aboard the HannSpree Ten Kate Honda in 2007.

    In the same year that Toseland bagged his second World Championship, Tom Sykes made his BSB debut aboard the Stobart Vent-Axia Honda FireBlade. After a year with Rizla Suzuki in 2008, Sykes made the step up to WSBK with Yamaha Moto Italia. Four years after making his World Championship debut in 2013, Sykes won his maiden title aboard the Kawasaki Racing Team ZX-10R.

    Perhaps the most successful rider to have won the WSBK title after making his debut in BSB is none other than Jonathan Rea. After making his bow aboard the Red Bull Honda FireBlade in 2006 and then eventually stepping up to the factory HM Plant Honda team for 2007, finishing second in the championship behind team-mate Ryuichi Kiyonari, Rea made the move to World Supersport for 2008. After eventually making the step up to the WSBK Championship in 2009, Rea went on to record five successive World Championships between 2015 and 2019, becoming the most successful rider in the history of the series.

    6. Shakey’s Supremacy 

    We couldn’t mention this number without making reference to the six British Superbike titles won by the most successful rider in the championship’s history, Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne.

    Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne At BSB Oulton Park 2017. Image courtesy of Ducati

    The first of Byrne’s titles came aboard the Monstermob Ducati 998 in 2003 before spells in World Superbikes and Moto GP. After returning to the British series in 2006 with Rizla Suzuki and Stobart Vent-Axia Honda in 2007, another ride aboard a Ducati (this time the 1098) yielded his second championship in 2008.

    Following another brief stint in the World Superbike Championship and then a return to BSB with HM Plant Honda, Byrne reunited with former team boss Paul Bird in 2012 and netted his third British title the same year aboard the Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki, repeating the trick in 2014. After the PBM team switched to a factory backed BeWiser Ducati Panigale 1199, Byrne notched another two back to back titles in 2016 and 2017.

    Another rider will have to go a long way to depose Shane Byrne’s place in the BSB history books.

    Those are our top six facts from BSB history. We look forward to seeing what the 2020 season can add to that when we hit Donington Park on August 7th.

    Featured Image courtesy of Ducati