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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1503048
his best WorldSBK result so far. Andrea Locatelli (Pata Yama- ha) caught and passed Lowes for fifth place. The Superpole race start saw more early fighting in the top echelons of WorldSBK, but it was Rea who took the lead and held it until the penultimate lap. He just rode as hard as he could from pole position, he said, but got caught out when the last of the late brakers, Razgatlioglu, squeezed him out and dropped him back a little with one lap and two corners to go. Regrouping for one final-turn attack on the Yamaha, the clos - ing Bautista went by Rea into the Foggy Esses, slowed his speed at the apex and thus Rea was relegated to third by lost mo - mentum. Rea still dreams of a first 2023 win. The lap record went again in the Superpole race, with Bautista setting a 1:25.896 on an SC0 standard tire from the Pirelli range, not the SCX that less ag - gressive asphalt would normally allow in a 10-lap race. Into the 1:25s, whatever next? Locatelli was fourth but 3.7 seconds down on Rea's third place. Petrucci was fifth. The final race of the weekend, with temperatures of 66° F and a track temperature of only 77° F got off at the correct starting time of 4:00 pm but lasted less than a lap when a three-rider crash saw Tom Sykes and Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba.it Ducati) taken away in ambulances, after Sykes high-sided and the other riders had nowhere to go. Cue a red flag and a delayed restart. The now 22-lap race, not the planned 23-lapper, finally got underway, making Sunday at Don - ington a truly long one, especially when there were no WorldSSP300 races to find slots for. The final race was a job of work for Rea from the start, as he could not get the edge grip he wanted and his rear was spin - ning even when new. He rode in second place for the first half of the race, but then lap-one leader Bautista and Razgatlioglu went past him, and he was then hunted down by an incredibly close pack of chasing riders. Bautista would lead on lap 14 and stay ahead of Razgatlioglu with a punch out of corners and traction Razgatlioglu could only dream of, and superior accelera- tion, pulling him away clearly on even the very short straight sec- tions at Donington. Bautista's riding in 2023 is masterful in the extreme, as both Razgatlioglu and Rea confess, but it also leaves them angry that even riding at their very best they cannot beat the Ducati in the longer races. So Rea would take a podium again? Not this time, as he got chased down as his pace dete - riorated and others found more. Petrucci would pass Rea and move away to take his first po- dium in WorldSBK, and give his Barni Spark Racing Ducati team their first top three in WorldSBK since race two in Argentina in 2018, with Xavi Fores on the old V-twin Panigale. Scott Redding rediscovered some confidence on his BMW, on a bike with no real changes from earlier in the weekend, to roar through to fourth. Rea was only fifth, with his teammate Lowes taking his third sixth-place finish of the weekend. For Garrett Gerloff (Bonovo BMW), the Texan left Donington Park with a race-one DNF, fol - lowed by seventh in the Super- pole race and ninth in race two. "I was fighting with some arm VOLUME ISSUE JULY , P29 Jonathan Rea led the Superpole race until the penultimate lap when Bautista and Toprak Razgatlioglu squeezed past.