He was uninjured and eventu-
ally got going again but he fin-
ished 20th and last, as the new
championship leader Razgatlio-
glu went out to win his second
long race of the weekend, hav-
ing been sixth in the sprint.
The second and last Doning-
ton race was the defining one,
after no shortage of drama and
cliff-hanging decisions for all ear-
lier in the weekend.
Toprak knew this was an
important moment, as he did
not need to fight with Rea all the
way for race two, although it had
been shaping up that way.
"One time I made a mistake
in T8 and I went wide because
Razgatlioglu at the Fogarty Es-
ses, on widescreen live TV, as
his onboard camera almost got
rammed into the Yamaha's tail
section. A swift change of direc-
tion saw Rea lose time, but only
temporarily.
Having caught back up to
Razgatlioglu in quick order, Rea
decided to go, feeling confident
on his setup after a difficult race
one on Friday. By his standards,
at least.
He may have been over-confi-
dent as he approached Coppice
on lap 11. He entered just offline
this time, his front tucked on the
bumps as he was trail-braking
and he crashed fast and hard.
Gerloff took the lead of the
group but fell at Goddards, re-
covering to finish seventh across
the line.
Fourth was Sykes, who had
re-passed the fading Van der
Mark, who had been third for
half the race.
Fifth, and drawing a measure
of relief for the struggling HRC
operation, was local boy Leon
Haslam, just under four seconds
from Rea and very close to a
podium.
Rea and Razgatlioglu ran
away out front in race two,
passing and re-passing as each
made small mistakes.
Rea almost collected
ROAD RACE
MOTUL FIM WORLDSBK CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 4 / JULY 2-4, 2021
DONINGTON PARK CIRCUIT / DONINGTON PARK, ENGL AND
P76
The BMWs were on
song at Donington, with
Michael van der Mark
(60) and Tom Sykes both
taking podium finishes.
