Toprak Razgatliolu became the first rider since Troy Corser to win at the same circuit on three different makes of bike in the Superbike World Championship in the opening race of the 2025 French Round, which saw another hectic lap 1 mix up the field.
From pole position sealed with an all-time lap record around the Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours, Razgatlioglu led the field and never looked back at a track that he has already notched up wins on for Kawasaki and Yamaha. Of course, had it not been for a nightmare crash last season here at Magny-Cours then the record of winning for 3 manufacturers would almost certainly already have been his and Corser’s to share this time last year.
The man who leapt up to 2nd was Alex Lowes on the Bimota machine, while Nicolo Bulega fell back to 4th also behind Sam Lowes. Predictably, Bulega would be back into 2nd place after a couple of laps and as usual Razgatlioglu was already comfortably clear by this point while Alex Lowes settled into the final podium spot.
At turn 9 on what appeared to be quite a clean opening lap of the race, Yari Montella came into the right-hand corner and eliminated both Andrea Iannone and Jonathan Rea. Rea was able to continue but later retired, while later in the same corner both Xavi Vierge and Alvaro Bautista bizarrely went down themselves (and were at least able to rejoin) to leave 5 bikes on the floor at one point.
Michael van der Mark avoided the chaos and was finally showing some strong race pace in his morbid 2025 campaign but 2 crashes left him with injured with contusions, just like Iannone from the incident on lap 1. Garrett Gerloff also slid out at high speed by himself as the race reached the closing stages while Tarran MacKenzie was also forced to retire early on.
The 15 riders who scored world championship points were the only 15 to have a clean race. That is except for Sam Lowes, who threw away 4th place with a clumsy crash at turn 13 late on but he was at least able to bring the bike back home in 9th place ahead of an unlikely duo of Bahattin Sofuoglu in 10th and Iker Lecuona replacement rider Sergio Garcia in 11th.
The attrition meant that Andrea Locatelli was able to come from the pitlane after a crash in quaifying to finish a remarkable 5th place. Nonetheless, it was Razgatlioglu up front who stole the headlines with a dominant victory that left no one in doubt who was the favourite for Sunday’s pair of races with a 4th consecutive hattrick/treble looking ominous.
Race 1 Results
Feature Image Credit: WorldSBK