BMW’S Toprak Razgatlioglu dominates round two of the WSBK Championship.

After a disastrous trip to Phillip Island for reigning Champion Toprak Razgatlioglu, ‘El Turco’ completed an unlikely treble in race 2 at Portimao earning his ninth victory at the circuit and leaves Portugal just 29 points behind championship leader Nicolo Bulega who secured a hat-trick of 2nd place finishes as the dominating duo proved to be the class of the field.

The pair are the only riders to have won WSBK races in 2025, having both won three of the opening six races.

After nine laps of racing Bulega & Razgatlioglu were glued together with a lead of more than five seconds over closest challengers Alvaro Bautista and Andrea Locatelli, the following lap Jonathan Rea’s replacement for the weekend Jason O’Halloran crashed heavily at turn 1, bringing out a red flag – fortunately the Australian was uninjured. Prior to O’Halloran’s retirement, Xavi Vierge and Tito Rabat had both crashed out of contention, meaning they wouldn’t be able to contest the 11 lap restart.

Bulega took the holeshot of the restarted race; and he was able to defend his P1 until Toprak overtook him, taking P1 momentarily on Lap 2, at Turn 1.

Bulega retook the lead in the run to Turn 1 of Lap three then Laps 6-8 saw the pair overtake each other a total of six times. The final three laps were fought tooth and nail as Toprak held on through the final stages of the race to claim his 60th WorldSBK win, now sitting third all-time in WorldSBK wins ahead of Carl Fogarty.

Bautista pushed his Ducati Panigale V4R hard to try to keep up with the two leaders, however the gap increased as the race went on, crossing the finish line 3.512s behind as he secured third place. Completing the top 6 were; Locatelli, Michael Van der Mark and Danilo Petrucci, while Bimota’s Axel Bassani and Honda’s Iker Lecuona secured their best finishes of the season in seventh and eighth.

Dominique Aegerter and Yari Montella completed the top 10. Andrea Iannone jumped the start and was punished with a double long lap penalty, the Italian however only completed the long lap penalty once so was issued a ride-through penalty which dropped the Ducati rider out of contention before he retired. Completing the point scorers were ; Sam Lowes, Garrett Gerloff, Bahattin Sofuoğlu, Ryan Vickers and Scott Redding who were classified 11th-15th place, with Petronas Honda duo Zaqhwan Zaidi and Tarran Mackenzie completing the field.

Featured Image: WorldSBK