If there is a race in which anyone can try to undermine Alvaro Bautista’s hegemony it is the Superpole Race, and at Misano Toprak Razgatlioglu tries until a red flag deprives him of a victory he almost had in his pocket. In fact, three laps from the end, Iker Lecuona and Danilo Petrucci crashed at the Quercia, forcing the marshals to stop the race. The winner is the reigning world champion, who had managed in the first sector to overtake a Toprak in great shape and ready to win.
Bautista thus mocks the Yamaha rider and also takes the victory in the Superpole Race, followed by Razgatlioglu by just 101 thousandths. He did an excellent race for the Turkish rider, who managed to keep pace with the Ducati rider and put his wheels in front of him on several occasions. Toprak deprived the Aruba team of the double, with Michael Ruben Rinaldi taking the third step of the podium.
On their home track, the first stages of the race are very hot for Rinaldi and Axel Bassani, who are immediately at loggerheads. However, it is the Aruba standard-bearer who has a better pace, managing to get rid of his opponent and trying to catch up with the two in front. He then closes the Superpole Race seven tenths behind the winner, while the Motocorsa rider pays for a gap of well over two seconds from Bautista, he is fourth and better than the independents.
Bassani is unrivaled in this independent fight, because Dominique Aegerter and Remy Gardner hit each other right at the start and finish the race in the gravel. At the expense is Danilo Petrucci, guilty of hitting the Swiss of the GRT team and penalized with a Long Lap Penalty. The damage beyond insult to the pilot Barni, who runs into the other accident with Lecuona, placed under investigation.
At the finish line, the Kawasaki pair of Jonathan Rea and Alex Lowes are behind the Ducati peloton. The six-time world champion finishes in fifth position, while his teammate is sixth. Seventh at the checkered flag is Andrea Locatelli, still struggling on his home weekend. The only official Honda finishing the race is Xavi Vierge, eighth, while the top 10 is completed by Garrett Gerloff, ninth and first of the BMW riders, and Philipp Oettl, tenth. Excellent performance by the German, who manages to enter the group of the top ten with the Panigale V4R of team Goeleven. So are the other Italians: Lorenzo Baldassarri is 12th, while the Italian Luca is 18th. Gabriele Ruiu retired.
