Reigning WorldSBK Champion won his first full-length race of 2022, while Rea claimed Kawasaki 500th podium place

Race 1 highlights – WorldSBK
P1 – Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK)
After getting the holeshot, Razgatlioglu escaped to take his first full-length race of the season by 6.397s over Rea – his 20th career victory in WorldSBK. He remains in third place in the Championship standings 54 points behind Bautista.
“Today, I ride relaxed. This year, the first races, I’m not riding relaxed; I’m always feeling stressed. This is the first time I ride relaxed like last year. My feeling with the bike is better, so I ride much better. It was an unbelievable race because I had a seven seconds gap over Jonny. I saw this and, at the finish line, I tried a stoppie again. Today I’m really happy. We tried to find the setup for the race.”

P2 – Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK)
After starting from pole position, Rea battled Bautista for second but the Spaniard eventually crashed out. Second place meant Rea closed the gap to Bautista in the Championship standings to 16 points, while also scoring Kawasaki’s 500th podium finish.
“In the first lap, I didn’t get a good track position. I lost a lot of time to Toprak in the first half of the race. And then, I was struggling with my bike a little bit. We need to make some changes tomorrow because all weekend we have been going from one weight balance to another and i think we have to revert back to our base set up that we know works and try to be there at the end tomorrow.”

P3 – Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK)
Lowes was third claiming his first podium of his 2022 campaign, the 20th of his career, at his home round.
“It’s nice to get my first podium here, I live just 5 minutes away. To be honest, in the race the temperatures were a little bit higher. I really struggled on the tyre I didn’t have much grip. I was battling with Scott and I realised his grip was even less than mine! There were some parts of the track he was so much faster than me, and other parts where I was quite a lot faster than him. I kept trying to pass him, but he was really late on the brakes until Melbourne Loop. We had a bit where I passed, and he passed back. Then he ran a little bit wide at Turn 2. I just managed to get underneath him. If I didn’t get past him enough, he was going to come straight back at me, and I was losing quite a lot of time. I was quite anxious to get past; it was a good battle.”

P4 – Scott Redding (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team)
Redding finished just outside the top three, scoring his best result since he moved to BMW. He finished 11.515s behind Razgatlioglu, his smallest gap to the race winner this season.
“Today we had a very good fight on track. We’ve made progress with the BMW which is very good. I just lost the last bit of the tyre with five laps to go and there was nothing I could do, which was a shame because the podium would’ve been amazing. The battle was kind of short because I had nothing to fight with, but I thought I would try anyway. It was good to battle. I had to try but I think it was three laps to go, I wasn’t going to hold him for three laps; he had too much of an advantage. It was quite good to be in the battle towards the front of the field.”

P5 – Axel Bassani (Motorcorsa Racing)
Starting from 10th on the grid, Bassani finished in sixth place as the first Ducati rider, and best Independent rider – a second clear of Rinaldi.
“It was a good race. I’m really happy about the good work we did since this morning with my team. We made a great step forward. We did a good race and I tried to give my best in the last lap. 6th place is a great result, when you are the first Ducati, it’s like a podium… I hope to continue this way tomorrow because I feel really good on my bike.”

P6 – Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati)
After a challenging race, Rinaldi finished in sixth place 14.482s behind the race winner. He stands in sixth place in the Championship standings, five points behind Lecuona.
“It wasn’t an easy race. Since the start I had an issue with the bike and after some laps I had another one. So it was a defensive race for me because during practices, my pace was more or less similar to Bautista’s one. When he crashed he was second so I think we could be there in normal conditions. Sometimes, races are just tough and you have to answer in a good way. I finished the race in the best way I could. P6 in Donington is nothing good, nothing bad but we could do more and tomorrow we have two more chances to do it.”

To note:
On Lap 16 Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) crashed at Turn 12 and retired from the race; ending his run of 12 consecutive podium. The Ducati rider remains the Championship leader despite not finishing Race 1. Explaining the crash, Bautista said: “When I was in front, in the last corner it is always a bit tricky. It’s so bumpy and it’s not an easy corner. You can’t use the same line many times because it depends how you take the bump. You can enter one way or another, it’s a difficult corner. That time, I braked so hard and maybe I had a bit more lean angle and I lost the front when I touched the bump. I crashed. I think we have to be positive. We can be very competitive in the race at a track where we suffered a lot. We could be competitive today. I’m happy, I’m confident for tomorrow. This is racing. I’m happy with the performance. Let’s see tomorrow if we can keep this feeling.”

Iker Lecuona (Team HRC) was the first Honda rider in eighth for his first race at Donington Park.

Wildcards Tarran Mackenzie (McAMS Yamaha) and Peter Hickman (FHO Racing) finished in 12th and 22nd place respectively.

WorldSBK action resumes on Sunday from 09:00 (Local Time), followed by Tissot Superpole Race at 11:00 and Race 2 at 14:00

WorldSBK Results Race 1
1. Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK)
2. Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) +6.397s
3. Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) +9.449s
4. Scott Redding (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) +11.515s
5. Axel Bassani (Motocorsa Racing) +12.820s
6. Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) +14.482s

Championship standings (after Race 1 – Round 5)
1. Alvaro Bautista (ESP) Ducati (220 points)
2. Jonathan Rea (GBR) Kawasaki (204 points)
3. Toprak Razgatlioglu (TUR) Yamaha (166 points)

WorldSBK Results Tissot Superpole
1. Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) 1’26.080s
2. Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) +0.273s
3. Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK) +0.426s

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