Razgatlioglu led the early stages of the race after getting the holeshot from second on the grid but soon came under pressure from polesitter Rea, who had successfully recovered from a poor start that had left him fifth at the end of lap 1.
Having gotten a great exit out of the final corner on lap 5, Rea closed in rapidly on Razgatlioglu into Turn 1 and then drew alongside him at the following straight.
However, the overtaking attempt ended in disaster as they made contact exiting Turn 2 and crashed out of the race, in what was the most controversial incident between the pair in WSBK’s history.
This promoted Iker Lecuona into the surprise lead of the race, but Bautista was able to repass the Honda rider with ease within a single lap and romp to a third victory of the 2022 season.
The result also leaves Bautista 18 points clear of Rea at the top of the standings, with reigning champion Razgatlioglu – yet to score a win this year – already dropping 45 points off the lead.
Second place in the race went to Razgatlioglu’s factory Yamaha teammate Andrea Locatelli, who demoted Lecuona four laps from the finish to secure his best result of the season.
Lecuona, however, had enough reasons to be content with the result as he clinched a first podium of his rookie WSBK season – as well as a first for Honda since Bautista’s pair of third-place finishes with the Japanese manufacturer in the latter half of the 2021 campaign.
Behind, Alex Lowes rebounded strongly from a double retirement to clinch a solid fourth place in the sole-surviving Kawasaki, finishing less than two seconds off the podium.
Motocross Ducati’s Axel Bassani earned the honour of the top independent rider in fifth in a race that saw both Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yamaha) and Loris Baz (Bonovo BMW) retire early on with unrelated crashes.
Meanwhile, Scott Redding delivered his best performance as a BMW rider as he charged from the outside of the top 10 to finish sixth, just two tenths behind Bassani after…
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