Kohta Nozane (Yamaha) in front of Jonas Folger (left behind him on BMW) – the Japanese and the German weren’t there for long in the first race, and for Folger it was another embarrassing technical fault of a BMW that was responsible.

Toprak wins his 4th race of the season before Redding and Rea crashes

While his Kawasaki team-mate Alex Lowes only had to start the race from P9 after a strong Friday, Jonathan Rea started from pole position for the sixth time in a row. Chaz Davies and Michael van der Mark, who started behind Tito Rabat from positions 16 and 17, fared even worse than his teammates. After the start, as expected, it was Toprak Razgatlioglu who had a late break who got away well and took the lead ahead of Rea and Redding. Because the world championship leader had relied on the somewhat harder SC0 tires and Toprak rode the SCX developed for the Superpole Race, this was by no means a disadvantage for the Kawasaki driver. Already at the first finish he was almost at the same height as the Turk and Redding was right behind. Shortly after an attack by Rea on the second lap, Toprak countered and then the Ducati rider made it past the Northern Irishman and at the start-finish also the Yamaha rider.

Right before the first start of the first race of the weekend at the Autodrom in Most with front left World Championship leader Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki ZX-10RR) on pole position. Behind Toprak on the Yamaha and Redding on the Ducati). In row 2 Sykes (BMW), Gerloff and Locatelli (both Yamaha).

Toprak’s first mistake and many early falls
Shortly thereafter, Toprak made a mistake in a right turn, causing Rea to slip past him inside. After Kohta Nozane, Alessandro Delbianco and Karel Hanika fell out. Next up was Jayson Uribe, and immediately after that, Davies and Lowes also got it independently. Meanwhile, Scott Redding was in the lead with a respectable margin of just over half a second from Rea and Razgatlioglu. Behind them, Rinaldi, Locatelli, Bautista, Bassani, Haslam, Gerloff and Sykes completed the provisional top ten. The lead changed several times between Toprak and the reigning world champion, while Folger also rolled out 16 laps before the end of his BMW after a serious engine failure. After eight of 22 laps, it looked like a safe victory for Redding, while the fight for position 2 was still completely open. Thirteen laps before the end, Tito Rabat was also lying in the gravel with his Ducati. At this point, Alvaro Bautista had dropped back to P11.

Michael van der Mark on the way out of the BMW box – the Dutchman was one of many who had little luck on Saturday and, like fellow brand designer Jonas Folger, experienced a day to forget (© BMW Motorrad WorldSBK).

The second half of the race with Rea’s mistake

Andrea Locatelli was fourth, already more than 6 seconds behind, while Toprak and Rea were getting closer, but the Northern Irishman lost the front behind the Yamaha rider when braking into Turn 1 and landed in the gravel. Shortly afterwards, van der Mark also fell. While Rea took up the chase again in 11th position, there were still 8 laps to go and Razgatlioglu got closer and closer to the leader. With 37 points behind the reigning world champion, it was already clear that he would not be able to recapture the championship lead from Assen even with a win. On the fourth last lap, the race was over for Rea when he crashed again in a right turn. A little later, Toprak was in the lead, but Redding fought his way past the Yamaha hope again. The battle for victory between the two remained open until the last corner. The Turk attacked again at Turn 15, but was overtaken by the Englishman again, but in the end he still managed to win, albeit in a very controversial way.

The result of the first race in Most

The first interviews after Superpole with Redding’s complaint about Toprak
Razgatlioglu was of course overjoyed and said he had seen a tough race, but still tried not to make a mistake. After his victory he wanted to try to repeat this on Sunday of course and thanked his team for an excellent bike that they had given him. Scott Redding, who complained bitterly about the Turk and his driving style, was less satisfied. It was just not fair to almost knock him on his knee in the middle of the curve, and you could see him saying it to his face afterwards. If Toprak was to fight like this, he would have to consider fighting back by similar means. Andrea Locatelli, however, was very satisfied with his podium and third place. However, he stated that he would definitely like to narrow the gap to the front on Sunday.

An angry Scott Redding openly shares his opinion with Toprak Razgatlioglu after his extremely ruthless attacks in the last round immediately afterwards. The Turk’s driving style is also astonishing because he fell in Assen as a result of a similar manoeuvre by his Yamaha brand colleague Gerloff and then complained bitterly about his manoeuvre.

Stand in the WorldSBK world championships after race 16 of the season

1. JONATHAN REA 243 KAWASAKI
2. TOPRAK RAZGATLIOGLU 231 YAMAHA
3. SCOTT REDDING 182 DUCATI
4. ALEX LOWES 130 KAWASAKI
5. MICHAEL RUBEN RINALDI 124 DUCATI
6. GARRETT GERLOFF 115 YAMAHA
7. TOM SYKES 109 BMW
8. MICHAEL VAN DER MARK 104 BMW
9. ANDREA LOCATELLI 100 YAMAHA
10. CHAZ DAVIES 85 DUCATI
11. ALVARO BAUTISTA 77 HONDA
12. AXEL BASSANI 71 DUCATI
13. LEON HASLAM 63 HONDA
14. LUCAS MAHIAS 36 KAWASAKI
15. TITO RABAT 23 DUCATI
16. KOHTA NOZANE 23 YAMAHA
17. ISAAC VINALES 19 KAWASAKI
18. EUGENE LAVERTY 14 BMW
19. JONAS FOLGER 8 BMW
20. LEANDRO MERCADO 7 HONDA
21. MARVIN FRITZ 6 YAMAHA
22. CHRISTOPHE PONSSON 6 YAMAHA
23. LORIS CRESSON 3 KAWASAKI
24. ANDREA MANTOVANI 2 KAWASAKI
25. LUKE MOSSEY 2 KAWASAKI

The Autodrom of Most

The route sketch of Most, a course that is roughly the opposite of the Red Bull Ring and extremely demanding with 21 corners. It is also questionable whether the asphalt is suitable for the World Championship, which some voices had already questioned in advance.

WorldSBK Most schedule

Dorna’s insight into this came very late, but at least those responsible for SBK understood it on August 3rd and announced that the WSSP 300 would start first at 1:45 p.m. on Sunday. In order to avoid a collision with MotoGP in Spielberg for at least Sunday, WorldSBK starts at 3:15 p.m. local time. After all, the second run is left on Sunday afternoon to show it live on TV. Otherwise, however, as expected, the MotoGP has priority in their broadcasts on practically all broadcasters. Because Dorna communicated this so late and 3 days before the start, we did not correct it in the following schedule.

As the culmination of the bad planning by FIM and Dorna, the first race of the WorldSBK overlaps with the qualifying of the MotoGP in Spielberg and the Superpole Race on Sunday morning will take place at the same time as the Moto3 Grand Prix of Styria. There are also scheduling conflicts for the WorldSSP 600, which is the main reason that almost nothing is broadcast live on TV. An absolute disgrace for the sport and a slap in the face for fans, drivers, teams and sponsors of the near-series World Championship!

Unless otherwise mentioned, applies to all images (© WorldSBK).