Toprak Wins his Twelfth Race of the 2022 Season Keeping the Championship Fight Alive.

The World Superbike championship are at the Mandalika circuit for the penultimate round of the 2022 championship. Toprak Razgatlioglu was on pole position for race one of the weekend, Jonathan Rea was in second place with Andrea Locatelli rounding out the front row in third place. The current championship leader Alvaro Bautista lined-up on the grid in fifth place.

Toprak got the holeshot into turn one, it was a Yamaha one-two of Toprak and Locatelli. Bautista and Rea were dicing for third place, Rea went on to make a move on Locatelli for second place a lap later.

Bautista made his move for third place with 19 laps remaining to the race, Toprak had a 0.4 second lead at the front from Rea. Lower down the field there was a battle for fifth place from Bassani to Alex Lowes who was in eighth place.

Scott Redding was down in 16th place after running off track on the first lap, the Brit was struggling to make positions up.

Toprak extended his lead to 1.3 seconds from Rea with 15 laps to go. Michael Van Der Mark ran wide at turn 16, which put the BMW rider backwards to tenth place.

Alvaro passed Rea for second place with just over 12 laps remaining to the race, the Ducati was able to pull away from Rea after the move was made for second place. Van Der Mark was getting back in the mix and passed Lowes for seventh place, Bassani had a moment at turn 16 but managed to save it but it put the Italian down in ninth place.

Alvaro was catching Toprak as the Turkish rider made a mistake at turn seven, the gap between the two was just 1.2 seconds with eight laps to go. Tyre wear was starting to come into play in the final stage of the race, Rea in particular was suffering, his lap times were reducing.

Michael Van Der Mark crashed at turn 16 with three laps to go, there was contact between Michael and Garrett Gerloff which caused Michael to run wide causing him to crash out of the race.

Toprak crossed the line to take his 12th victory of the 2022 season, Bautista crossed the line in second place with Rea holding on to third place.

Bautista just needs to finish in third place in both races tomorrow to win the 2022 title, Toprak is looking likely to take the runner-up position as he has extended his lead from Rea by 25 points.

Featured Images: WorldSBK.com