Five winners and losers from round four of the WorldSBK Championship at Misano

Five winners and losers from round four of the 2022 WorldSBK championship as Alvaro Bautista extends his championship lead, while Toprak Razgatlioglu claims his first win as world champion.

Robert Jones

12 Jun 2022

Iker Lecuona, Team HRC Honda WorldSBK Misano

Winners

Alvaro Bautista

Heading to Misano as the WorldSBK championship leader, Bautista once again showed why he’s the title favourite after dominating both feature races. Bautista took victory in race one after a brilliant battle with Jonathan Rea, however, it was race two where the Aruba.it Ducati rider really performed at his best.

A race pace that was unbeatable despite it bringing out the very best of Toprak Razgatlioglu, Bautista began to check out by over four tenths per lap from mid-race distance onwards. With Rea and Razgatlioglu both pushing themselves and their machine to the absolute limit this weekend, Bautista appeared to be delivering red-hot pace with ease, which will no doubt cause concern for his title rivals. Bautista now leads the championship by 36 points.

Toprak Razgatlioglu

While Razgatlioglu was left frustrated by a technical issue that took away a sure-fire race one podium, a problem that could prove pivotal in the championship come the end of the year, the Yamaha rider showed just why he’s the reigning world champion during Sunday’s races.

After topping morning warm-up, Razgatlioglu dominated the Superpole race in order to claim his first win with the #1 plate. And although Bautista got the better of him in race two, Razgatlioglu showed the type of performance that not many riders across any championship could deliver. Visibly struggling for top speed and rear grip, Razgatlioglu was incredible under braking which led to him sustaining a very respectable challenge to the Spaniard.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi

After suffering a small issue in this morning’s Superpole race which dropped him down the order, it appeared as though Rinaldi would struggle to back up his race one podium. But although it wasn’t a win which he’s achieved on four occasions in his Superbike career (twice at Misano), that was not the case as the Italian delivered one of the best performances of his career to claim third.

En route to beating Rea for a second podium, Rinaldi made up six places in just two laps before overhauling the Kawasaki rider on lap four.

Xavi Vierge

While a massive crash in race two dented what was quickly becoming the Team HRC rider’s best round in WorldSBK, Vierge showed enough potential to suggest podiums aren’t far away.

In fact, a bold strategy choice in the Superpole race - elected to run the SCQ (qualifying specific) tyre - plus a fast start allowed Vierge to not only make his way into the top five, but challenge Rea for a podium. The Spaniard eventually finished fourth which backed up his solid seventh place result in race one.

Iker Lecuona

Like his team-mate Vierge, Lecuona was extremely fast throughout the Misano WorldSBK round. A ninth place result would have been disappointing in race one given the speed he demonstrated in FP3, but back-to-back fifth places during Sunday’s double-header was another positive indication of both Honda and his development in 2022.

Losers

Jonathan Rea

While any weekend where Rea secures two podium finishes is hard to criticise, the six-time WorldSBK champion became less competitive as the weekend went on, something we very rarely see. A win looked possible in race one before Bautista ultimately gapped the Kawasaki rider with five laps to go, but as Sunday demonstrated, fighting for this year’s title is going to take a monumental effort from both Rea and the Japanese manufacturer.

In terms of races finished this season, race two at Misano was the first occasion where Rea was beaten by another rider not named Bautista or Razgatlioglu. By missing out on P3, Rea also fell short of clinching Kawasaki’s 500th WorldSBK podium.

Alex Lowes

After a very solid performance in race one where Lowes claimed fifth, Sunday’s double-header proved much tougher for the former Yamaha rider. As was the case for parts of race one, Lowes found overtaking difficult aboard his ZX-10RR, an issue that lingered into today’s races.

After passing Lecuona under yellow flags and therefore needing to relinquish the position which resulted in him dropping down to eighth in the Superpole race, Lowes showed more and more speed towards the end of race two, however, a continued breach of track limits resulted in the Brit being hit with a long-lap penalty which he served on the final lap, a mistake that cost him two places to Andrea Locatelli and Axel Bassani.

Lowes is currently the only rider among the ‘big three’ teams - KRT, Aruba.it Ducati and Pata Yamaha that’s yet to score a podium in 2022.

Garrett Gerloff

Although speed was again shown by the American in practice, Gerloff’s struggles in qualifying and race situations continued. Eighth and ninth in the first two races of the weekend, the second feature race was following a similar pattern before the GRT Yamaha rider crashed out at the final corner.

Kohta Nozane

Like Gerloff, it was another weekend to forget for fellow GRT Yamaha rider Nozane. Hoping to make considerable steps forward in his second season, Nozane has failed to close the gap to Gerloff, Locatelli or Razgatlioglu.

The Japanese rider was over 40 seconds off the win in both feature races, while a crash in the Superpole race was another tough pill to swallow in what could be his last season with the team.

Loris Baz

What’s been a tough start to the season for Baz and BMW continued as the French rider suffered back-to-back crashes in race one and the Superpole race.

The former Kawasaki rider managed a solid recovery ride in order to claim tenth during race two, but considering Baz claimed two podiums in five appearances for Ducati in 2021, the issues currently going on with BMW’s M 1000 RR are clearly hindering Baz, as it is with all their riders.