Although Nicolo Bulega has been the one who has brought the singing voice in the first half of the season and has practically not made mistakes, Toprak Razgatlioglu has demonstrated in Misano that he is not telling the races that he has left to go to MotoGP, but wants to continue fighting the Italian and, if he can, snatch the title.
That is the rapid conclusion that we can get from a weekend in which Toprak has shone as only he knows how to do, squeezing his BMW to the limit and keeping his rivals at bay. And all this seasoned with a little luck to stay at the stele of Bulega in the general.
SBK Misano – Carrera 1: Anthological Face Face
Toprak wanted to win, Nicolo wanted to win and only one could do it. Although Razgatliolgu began leading, an error relegated it to the third position behind Axel Bassani and Bulega himself. But there was still much ahead and even more after Bassani’s fall.
Bulega tried to impose his rhythm, but Razgatlioglu was recomposed of the ruling and in Tour Four he took the race again. At that time the duel rose level with the Turk trying to distance himself and the Italian offering his best version to prevent it from happening. And all this with the rest of the pilots without even possibilities.
In the end Toprak managed to beat Nicolo the first round of the weekend and, as we said, with an abysmal advantage of both of the rest because Danilo Petrucci achieved the fourth place more than 16 second and after beating a direct duel with Alex Lowes.
Andrea Locatelli, Álvaro Bautista, Sam Lowes, Yari Montela, Iker Lecuona and Scott Redding completed the top10 in a race in which only 17 pilots finished.
SBK Misano – Superpole Race: Bassani takes Bulega and Toprak takes … the victory
On Sunday it did not start well for Bulega that went to the ground at the Warm-Up, but the thing was more complicated as soon as the superpole race with Axel Bassani leaving the ground in the first curve and taking Nicolo ahead. From that point, Razgatlioglu began to cement a relentless victory in which he had no rival.
On this occasion Alex Lowes did take the Bimota to the podium, the first of the brand on his return to the competition, and Andrea Locatelli accompanied them on a podium without any Ducati, something totally atypical this year.
Petrucci and Bautista, fourth and fifth respectively, were the first classified of the brand.
SBK Misano – Carrera 2: Bulega gives everything to overcome, but Razgatlioglu gives more
After the fall and not adding points, the next worst for Bulega was that he had to leave from the tenth position and that Razgatlioglu would do it from the first. So the goal did not have to be so much to achieve victory for the Italian, but to lose the least possible points.
Without rivals, Toprak launched the sponator, he left, marked his rhythm and began to leave all his rivals, while from behind Nicolo and his Ducati were going back. Sixth at the end of the first round, fifth the third, third in the fourth and second in the fifth round. A spectacular comeback that put on the table the possibility of a comeback … but Toprak gave no option.
Instead of decreasing the advantage between the BMW pilot and Ducati’s was increasing and increasing with the passage of the laps, already a base of fast laps and after leading all the laps, Razgatlioglu achieved the third victory of the weekend with almost 10 seconds of advantage over Bulleta.
Álvaro Bautista, in his last appearance in Misano with the official Ducati, ended up climbing to the podium ahead of two of his usual travel companions: Andrea Locatelli and Danilo Petrucci.
Lecuona, Sam Lowes, Gerloff, Vierge and Van der Mark completed the top10 in a race in which only 17 pilots ended again.
After the third race, the WSBK 2025 reaches half of the season, although before the holidays there will be two races in July. The first one in Donington in four weeks.
