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and pushing their tires, he had the big- gest profile rear of the eventual top three, and the best pace to go with it. And in race two, there was a different kind of contest in that he won from the "naughty step" of the third row (a regula- tory gift for all the top three from race one, of course) in which he was even more impressive. "For sure this is a track that suits the Yamaha, and I love this track, but there are some stop-and-go areas, like the last part of the track, where we are still struggling," Van der Mark said. "We are getting better, but this is the point where we struggled. In the fast and flowing part of the track the Yamaha is amazing and it is the same in Assen. It is still difficult to control the bike in stop-and-go areas, but in fast areas the bike has always been amazing." VDM beat Rea by 1.136 seconds in race one, and Sykes by 2.193, but in race two he beat Toprak Razgatlioglu (Puccetti Kawasaki) by 2.328 and Rea by 2.614 seconds. Did we say Toprak Razgatlioglu? Yes, a 21-year-old Turkish Superbike rookie. Shy by nature and still learning English at an accelerating rate, the protégé of Kenan Sofuoglu has already done something the master could not do in his lone Honda WorldSBK season, and scored a podium. Second place, no less. "It was not easy but what was different today was the tire," said the former Stock 1000 Championship contender. "We changed the tire choice and made a little bit of a change in the electronics setup. This morning I tried and made a good lap time, I was fastest in warm-up, and I started the race in 10th position. I fol- lowed Sykes and Johnny, and after I saw the riders sliding too much. My bike was sliding, but with safety." At his home round, Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha) was twice fourth, and led the second race for the majority of it before three other riders jumped him. He was over six seconds down in race one, but only just behind Rea in race two, 2.894 seconds from his own teammate. The internal Yamaha rivalry to see who would take the first race win went to the Dutchman Van der Mark, emphatically so, and not Lowes, but this was also a strong showing for the Englishman who kept his head and gave his all. Ducati, by their own high standards, had an utter disaster at Donington. It felt like they were not there at all at times, as the best Panigale qualifier was Chaz Davies, ninth on the grid who raced to eighth in race one and fifth in race two. Teammate Marco Melandri had a shock- er, crashing in race one and remounting for 22nd, and finishing 11th in race two. Jake Gagne's WorldSBK apprentice- ship continued at Donington, taking 16th in race one and improving to 13th in race two. "The first few laps of race one were tough; my start was OK but starting so far back meant there was a lot of traffic to deal with," said Gagne. "But from the halfway point of the race onwards it was a lot better. My Fireblade was working well and I could attack in quite a few parts of the track, which helped me make up some places. It was good to finish in the points today." Gagne's compatriot PJ Jacobsen had a mixed weekend in the UK, finishing with 14th in race one and 16th in race two. "In the wet on Friday we were pretty strong, top 10 in the full wet conditions," he said. "That was pretty positive and the VOL. 55 ISSUE 21 MAY 30, 2018 P51 Michael van der Mark pulled a double out of the hat at Donington Park, his and his country's first-ever WorldSBK wins.