Toprak Razgatlioglu stopped a Nicolo Bulega hat-trick of wins to claim WorldSBK Race 2 victory at Jerez to close out the 2024 season.
The red flag was called out with four Laps to go due to Phillip Oetti’s engine going up in smoke on the start-finish straight.
The top two dominated proceedings once again and had a near ten second advantage over the rest of the field.
Bulega and Razgatlioglu maintained first and second place into Turn 1 with both riders by far and away the best riders of the weekend thus far.
Danilo Petrucci fell from fourth to seventh on the grid as Michael van der Mark and Andrea Iannone pounced on the Italian.
Razgatlioglu forced his way through on Bulega on Lap 2 with an incredible last-ditch attempt in the first sector, which he made stick.
2023 BSB champion Tommy Bridewell crashed out early on his wildcard appearance on the Honda, with Tarran Mackenzie retiring later that same Lap, too.
Andrea Locatelli aboard the Yamaha in the final podium fended off a possible threat from Kawasaki rider Lowes before Van der Mark elevated himself to fourth to try and cap off the season with a double BMW podium.
The Italian rider proceeded to drop down to seventh inside two Laps due to Van der Mark, Iannone, Lowes and Petrucci all forcing their way through.
Alvaro Bautista was the next rider to pass Locatelli at the Turn 6 hairpin but could not ride that bike around the complete Turn, which consequently meant he had to sit the back up as he fell back down to the 11th spot.
He overtook Axel Bassani and Jonathan Rea in quick succession and was soon behind Garrett Gerloff’s BMW as the Panigale bike showed its outright speed around the Spanish streets.
Despite the problematic start from Petrucci in the opening stages, he recovered to the back of Lowes and spent the first half of the race finding a move.
Iannone tried to find a gap in the final corner to overtake Van der Mark’s BMW, but no room was available. Iannone’s GoEleven went wide and recovered from a possible crash and retirement.
With the Italian rider behind Petrucci and Lowes due to the marginal incident with the Dutch BMW rider, the following Lap on that same corner, Iannone recovered past Petrucci.
While on the back of Gerloff, the Spaniard aimed to make ground due to his past errors in the race. However, his attempts proved to be short-lived, as he crashed out of the race and for the third time over the weekend.
On the other side of the garage, his rookie team-mate Bulega was right on the back of Razgatlioglu, but the red flag was called out because Phillip Oetti’s engine blew up.
Razgatlioglu picked up his first victory of the weekend in the final race to close out the 2024 WorldSBK season in style.
Bulega could only manage second for Ducati and his elusive first treble will be put on hold until 2025 at the earliest.
Van der Mark delivered BMW a 1-3 to close out the season, but BMW has missed out on both team championships to Ducati.
Iannone impressively recovered to fourth place before the red flag was called ahead of Lowes and Petrucci.
The British rider hung on to fourth in the championship ahead of the Italian, but Petrucci will take comfort in knowing he won the Independent Title for Barni Spark.
Gerloff solidified seventh place for BMW in his last race for the Bonovo team as the American fended off the factory Yamaha riders of Locatelli and Rea.
Bassani took tenth place for Kawasaki ahead of Ducati’s Michael Ruben Rinaldi’s last race.
The last point-scoring positions consisted of Scott Redding, Xavi Vierge, Sam Lowes and Tito Rabat.
