held onto his advantage and won
what was a truly a thrilling race.
Redding was less than thrilled
by his rival's maneuver.
Behind the top two, Andrea
Locatelli followed his first-ever
Assen podium with another at
Most. Fourth was Michael Ruben
Rinaldi (Aruba.it Ducati) and fifth
was privateer Axel Bassani (Moto-
corsa Ducati).
Having escaped the rains for
the races themselves on Satur-
day, they came back overnight
with a vengeance, but race day
two dawned dry and sunny.
In the Tissot Superpole sprint
race Razgatlioglu took the lead,
with Rea following. Each leading
rider broke the lap record using
their soft SCX rear tires with Rea
securing a 1:31.996 on lap three
as he harried his main champion-
ship rival.
His luck was not to hold as he
ran off track at the already notori-
ously tight turn one and took to
the escape road to rejoin still in
second place with Redding im-
mediately behind.
Rea was passed on the final
lap with the podium 1-2-3 being
Razgatlioglu Redding, Rea.
Six-time World Champion Rea
reached another major landmark
at Most, securing his 200th
podium in WorldSBK in that short
Sunday race.
In fourth place in the sprint,
Locatelli was showing that both
he and the Yamaha were improv-
ing consistently, with Sykes in
fifth place and the first BMW rider
home.
An early leading five in race
two was comprised of Razgatlio-
glu, Locatelli, Redding, Rea and
Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team),
but on the fifth lap Razgatlioglu
was demoted by Redding, and
that was that for the win, at least.
Toprak finally gave up his fight
and pursuit of Redding, while
behind, it took Jonathan Rea just
too long to get past the impres-
sive Locatelli to mount any kind of
challenge beginning on lap nine
of a 22-lap race. Fourth was the
race-two reward for WorldSBK
rookie Locatelli, and overall this
was his best weekend in WorldS-
BK after some breakthrough rides
at Assen recently.
Lowes' fatigue due to recent
crashes and bashes finally
dropped him to sixth, as Rinaldi
caught him for fifth place.
For Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yama-
ha), he never quite got going at
Most, taking a pair of sixth-place
finishes and an eighth.
"I think we could have been
higher up, but just need a better
start and everything," Gerloff said.
"One thing at a time. I don't think
it's too bad to learn Most, just dif-
ficult to make a pass. Sometimes
I think on my bike setup to where
if I can keep my momentum up,
the bike works perfect, but if I lose
some momentum because I'm be-
hind somebody, the bike doesn't
work as efficiently."
In the championship points
after 18 races at six different
rounds, Rea leads Razgatlioglu
by a slender three points, with
the once seemingly down-and-
out Redding now 50 points back
from Rea, who appears human
after all this season.
The biggest winner at Most,
when the championship battle
cracked wide open again?
Razgatlioglu, obviously, in sta-
tistical terms, but Redding went
VOLUME 58 ISSUE 32 AUGUST 10, 2021 P37
Redding got another "win" as he
proposed to his girlfriend, Kacey,
on the podium on live TV. Luckily,
she said yes.
