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Top Gun) held his ground after qualifying fourth. Not for long as Axel Bassani (MotoCorsa Ducati) got past, having started from a superb third place on the grid. Both Lowes and Bassani would be swallowed up by ninth-place qualifier Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba.it Ducati). Michael van der Mark (BMW Motorrad) was sixth, one place better than he qualified as the new BMW M 1000 RR continued its decent development progress. In Sunday morning's Super- pole race, run in slightly windier conditions than Saturday's race one, Razgatlioglu was the early pace-setter, once more showing everyone else the way, including Redding and Rea. The incremental advantages between the leading three riders were evident as the 1-2-3 looked set to remain unchanged before the checkered flag, but a mis- take from Redding let Rea close an early misfortune as he fell in turn one of lap one, his rear tire sliding out instantly as he barely tapped on the power. He pirouetted slowly and got going again to finish a battling ninth, and with podium-capable pace but for his first-lap mishap. After being usurped from a seemingly certain pole posi- tion after his almost complete pre-race domination of the timesheets, Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha) gradually ran away from the field in the first race, pursued in vain by second place finisher Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team), resplendent in Ka- wasaki's beautiful 125th birthday paint job—green, white and blue— for this race only. Behind the top two podium rid- ers, the fight for third was where the action was, as Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team, in GPZ900R red and black colors made famous by Tom Cruise in ROUND 12 / OCTOBER 15-17, 2021 CIRCUITO SAN JUAN VILLICUM / SAN JUAN, ARGENTINA P58 ROAD RACE I FIM SUPERBIKE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP MYOWNRACE 1 JONATHAN REA 2-3-2 SUPERBIKE "I could play with the bike," Rea said a er race two. "In some key areas, I was losing but I was able to be in the fight. I just lost a li le bit of me behind Toprak, Sco was able to really go. And from that point, it was almost about si ng on my ground, wai ng for a mistake from Toprak and concentra ng on him, forget about the race win. Maybe I should've tried a bit harder because I think my pace was really good at the end and I could've really fought for that win." 45 SCOTT REDDING 9-2-1 SUPERBIKE "I said if they wanted to see this side, I'd also ride aggressively," Redding said a er race two. "That's what I did this weekend. I put my name on the map to not be the safety rider anymore because it doesn't bring anything. If you can't beat them, join them. That's what I did and managed to beat them as well. I can't wait to watch the race back! I don't remember anything that happened! It was like Bassani, Jonny, Toprak through and then me. I didn't even know what was going on! It looked really good from my point. I got to the front and I was feeling Toprak on the inside for the move. I braked too late, gave it all back again. I'm pushing, I'm pushing on my limit to win races." Alex Lowes had a Kawasaki GPZ900-inspired paint job on his Kawasaki for race one. It didn't hold a candle to Rea's paint job however (see Captured pg 12).