Nicolo Bulega bounced back on Sunday at the Tissot Aragon Round to keep the Superbike World Championship battle rolling on into the last two rounds after a pair of hard-fought victories against Toprak Razgatlioglu, whose record-breaking winning streak he has finally ended.
Tissot Superpole Race
As with Race 1 yesterday, Razgatlioglu established a pattern of passing into turn 15 but Bulega would retaliate through the long final corner of turn 16. This first occurred at the end of lap 1 then again on laps 2, 4, 5 and 9.
When both realised they would have to get a little more creative to pass each other, turns 7 and 12 became passing hotspots. Razgatlioglu preferred the former and Bulega the latter.
Behind them was Alvaro Bautista who made it into 3rd place but still had Sam Lowes sticking with him. Dominique Aegerter, Yari Montella and Tito Rabat collided at turn 5 on the opening lap but it was an otherwise clean 10-lap affair.
The TV direction had no chance to much of the action further down the grid as the titanic battle constantly played out at the front. With 3 laps to go, Bautista had broken free of Sam Lowes after the Brit made a small mistake and it looked as if the Spaniard could possibly make it a 3-way fight for the win or at least try and take some points off Razgatlioglu to help his teammate.
The other notable thing to happen on lap 8 was that there was no overtakes between the top 2. Razgatlioglu was preparing himself for a late lunge and it came at turn 7 on the penultimate lap.
However, Bulega was back ahead at turn 12 before Razgatlioglu slid through at turn 15 and lost the lead again at the end of the straight going through turn 16. It was all so predictable but heading onto the last lap through the last two corners but going into the last lap it was all to play for.
Razgatlioglu surprised Bulega with a move into the corkscrew halfway around the final lap. The BMW rider held the lead right up until the last corner, when the inevitable happened…
Bulega slingshot his way underneath his rival and took victory by to avenge his narrow defeat yesterday and ended Razgatlioglu’s winning streak of 13 races to seal his first victory since back in May at Most.
Tissot Superpole Race Results
Race 2
The whole grid made it cleanly around the opening corners of Race 2 as Bautista fell down to 5th behind Andrea Iannone and Jonathan Rea. Then came the inevitable Razgatlioglu pass on Bulega at turn 15 before the Ducati’s retaliation at turn 16.
Razgatlioglu had to try something different and one lap later bullied his rival out of the way at turn 14 instead of 15, but again Bulega was far superior through the long left of the last corner. When Razgatlioglu passed into turn 16 himself on lap 3, by the exit of the corner Bulega was immediately back ahead.
Thankfully for Razgatlioglu he carried enough speed to retake the lead at turn 1 as it became clear that we were once again in for an absolute classic World Superbikes race. Bulega was back ahead by turn 16 next time around.
Meanwhile, Bautista had gotten back up to 3rd place and began to slowly reel in the leaders. Ultimately, he lost too much time to catch Razgatlioglu and try to take some points off him to help his teammate Bulega.
At the end of lap 7 Razgatliolgu was again briefly ahead through turn 16 but was close enough to scythe through on Bulega at turn 7 on the following lap. Bulega struck back at turn 12 and held on until turn 1 on lap 10.
The defining moment of the race sadly did not come right at the end as it had yesterday or in the Tissot Superpole Race. After a successful move at turn 7 again on lap 11, the next time around at the same corner Razgatlioglu uncharacteristically ran wide to let Bulega through easily.
That was it as far as the race was concerned and Razgatlioglu had to focus on repelling Bautista behind to bank the points for 2nd place. Meanwhile, Bahattin Sofuoglu and Zaqhwan Zaidi crashed out further down the order.
The next most interesting fight to develop was over 4th place. With 4 laps to go the battle intensified between Iannone, Rea and Sam Lowes but the latter slid out at turn 14 on the penultimate lap.
Alex Lowes was around 3 seconds further back and trying to keep Andrea Locatelli at bay with Michael van der Mark close behind. The latter rider on the second BMW crashed out at high speed at turn 16 on the penultimate lap but thankfully was not too badly hurt.
The late accidents promoted Garrett Gerloff and Ryan Vickers to the points. Bulega eased to the line 3.2 seconds clear of his title rival with Razgatlioglu just over a second clear of Bautista so that the championship lead comes down from 39 to 36 points with 2 rounds (6 races) to go in 2025.
Race 2 Results
Feature Image Credit: WorldSBK
