Alvaro Bautista Takes His fifth Victory Of The Season, With Toprak Razgatlioglu Retiring From The Race.

The World Superbike Championship are at The Pirelli Emilia-Romagna round four of the 2022 championship at Misano. It was Alvaro Bautista who took pole position, it was the Spaniard’s first pole position of the 2022 season. Toprak Razgatlioglu lined-up on the grid in second place, Jonathan Rea rounded out the front row in third place.

It was perfect weather conditions for race one, as the lights went out Toprak lead the 26 riders in to turn one. Bautista was in second place with Rea all over his back wheel. The battle for second place was fierce! Michael Ruben Rinaldi was in fourth place just waiting for one of the leading trio to make a mistake.

On to the third lap there was a front group of seven riders from Toprak to Xavi Vierge. Rea took second place from Bautista; the Northern Irish rider went on to take the lead from Toprak. Christophe Ponsson crashed out at turn four.

With 18 laps to go Toprak was pushed back to third place, Axel Bassani was in a strong fourth place. Philipp Oettl crashed out at turn eight. Bautista put the fastest lap of the race in on lap six, the Spaniard was right on Rea’s back wheel! The leading duo started to pull away from Toprak, the Turkish rider was riding the wheels off his Yamaha R1.

Toprak clawed his way back to the leading duo with 13 laps to go, Bautista took the lead from Rea but he ran wide at turn eight. Bautista was faster than Rea but he couldn’t make a pass and make it stick for first position.

Alex Lowes and Locatelli were battling for sixth place, Scott Redding was down 11th place. Nine laps remained as Bautista made his move on Rea and held on to the first place position at Curvone Corner. There was a gap of 0.8s between Rea and Toprak.

With seven laps to go Toprak pulled over at the last corner with a mechanical issue, the reining champion was out of the race! Rinaldi was now promoted to third place. Bautista yet again put in the fastest lap of the race with five laps to go.

Bautista set an all-new race lap record with two laps to go in the race, the Ducati rider now had a comfortable lead of 4.5s over Rea.

Bautista crossed the finish line to take his fifth race victory of the 2022 season, Rea was second with Rinaldi in third place, Bassani was fourth, Alex Lowes finished in fifth. Bautista now has a 22 point championship lead from Rea.

Featured Images: WorldSBK.com