ROKiT BMW Motorrad’s Toprak Razgatlioglu stylishly sealed a hat-trick of WorldSBK race wins at Misano with a commanding victory in Race 2 in Emilia Romagna, Italy.
After winning the first two races of the weekend and targeting a hat trick earlier in the week, Razgatlioglu successfully achieved his target from pole position on Sunday afternoon.
However, after a frenetic opening lap, the Turkish rider was made to work for it in the early stages.
Bulega narrowly claimed the holeshot over Andrea Iannone, followed by Alex Lowes, Andrea Locatelli and Razgatlioglu, who fell from pole position to fifth.
But the BMW rider was brave into Turn 10 to force his way into third.
By the end of the lap he was second courtesy of a Turn 14 block pass on Lowes and had to set about chasing Bulega who had crafted an early lead due to the chaos behind.
Meanwhile, Iannone was dropping like a stone, falling all the way to 10th as he struggled with an apparent issue on his Team GoEleven Ducati.
As Razgatlioglu gave chase to Bulega, who was 1,5s up the road on Lap 4, Lowes was hitching a tow on the BMW rider, just 1.3s back in third place.
Alvaro Bautista wasn’t having as easy a time of it in fourth, with the reigning champion looking unlikely to trouble the top three in the early stages.
Razgatlioglu wanted a hattrick of wins and with 16 laps to go it was looking more and more realistic as the Turkish rider closed right in on Bulega’s rear wheel.
The BMW ace made his move at Turn 8 with 14 laps to go and successfully held off Bulega down the back straight to hold the lead.
Nobody else could run close to the leading duo with Lowes having fallen six seconds behind Bulega, leading to Bautista sniffing all over the rear of the Kawasaki ZX-10RR machine.
With 10 laps to go Bautista successfully made his way past Lowes into third, but having had to fight through the pack thanks to his crash in the Superpole race, the Spaniard was 10 seconds off of the race lead.
Bautista wasn’t the only Ducati rider who could forget challenging for the win, with Razgatlioglu lapping an incredible eight-tenths of a second quicker than second place Bulega, extending the lead to over three seconds with eight laps to go.
Razgatlioglu’s lead had grown to four seconds with 5 laps to go and the fight for victory looked all but settled.
But the fight for third was still raging with Lowes failing to lose his grip on Bautista and Barni Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci engaged in a tussle with Kawasaki’s Axel Bassani for sixth.
From the moment he ascended into the lead, it looked like a forgone conclusion and BMW, a marque that has spent years in the WorldSBK doldrums entered dreamland as Razgatlioglu crossed the line to take three wins from three.
The dominant performance granted the Turkish rider a 21-point lead over second-place Bulega with Bautista settling for third in the race and Championship standings respectively.
Lowes finished a fine fourth for the Kawasaki Racing Team with Locatelli leading the line for Pata Prometeon Yamaha in fifth.
Just months after a nearly career-ending motocross crash, Petrucci crossed the line to take an emotional sixth, winning his duel with seventh-placed Bassani.
GYTR GRT Yamaha’s Remy Gardner finished eighth ahead of Team HRC Honda’s Iker Lecuona.
Jonathan Rea held onto a top-10 finish ahead of Iannone with Scott Redding finishing a much improved 12th on the Bonovo Action BMW M 1000 RR.
Marc VDS Ducati’s Sam Lowes recovered from two DNFs in the first two races to finish 13th with Puccetti Racing Kawasaki rider Tito Rabat and GMT94 Yamaha rider Philipp Oettl completing the points-scoring positions.
Team Motocorsa Racing’s Michael Ruben Rinaldi finished just outside the points in 16th with Yamaha Motoxracing’s Bradley Ray in 17th.
It was a race to forget for Bonovo’s Garrett Gerloff in 18th with Petronas MIE Racing Honda’s Tarran Mackenzie rounding out the finishers.
