Keith Huewen: Razgatlioglu-Rea clash a 'racing incident', could have avoided it
While Alvaro Bautista regained the WorldSBK championship lead following a brilliant race two performance, the aftermath of round two in Assen was dominated by Razgatlioglu and Rea crashing out.
The two 2021 title contenders have been racing one-another at the very limit for nearly a year, and while it remained fair and relatively clean throughout, Assen was far from that.
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On the run down to turn one Rea attempted to make a move on Razgatlioglu, which forced the Yamaha rider into a mistake.
The reigning world champion braked too late and ran onto the curb - crucially not off-track though - before electing to hold his ground as Rea dashed for the same racing line.
The two inevitably touched, and given the speed of both riders at the point of contact, anything other than a crash was asking too much.
Razgatlioglu and Rea equally to blame - Huewen
"How many times! How many times have we seen a rider run a little deep, come back to the line then come together with those who have gone underneath him, as Jonathan Rea did.
"It’s a racing incident as far as I’m concerned. I don’t think anybody should be penalised, but there’s two arguments here. Toprak should have been aware that having run wide someone is going to go for the gap that he’s left there.
"Coming back down to the line, he should probably know that there’s going to be someone there. But you can also argue that Jonathan would also know that Toprak is going to square it off and look to hit the apex that Jonathan is now on.
"That’s probably why it ended up being a tit for tat racing incident type of situation. Let’s go back a couple of years when Marc Marquez stuck it under Valentino Rossi; we he touched, was he not, it doesn’t really matter because all he did was sit on the back wheel and gassed it through the sand pit.
"Just straight-lined it like a motocross rider. Straight threw he went and beat Marquez to the line."
More WorldSBK controversy leads to Bautista losing second in the Superpole race
In what was arguably the most drama-filled WorldSBK race day in recent years, even more attention was brought to Sunday's action in the shape of the Superpole race.
Bautista was relegated from second to third after being deemed to run onto the green at the final corner.
Images then surfaced online, including tweets from an angry Bautista, which showed that the Ducati rider was nowhere near the green paint.
Huewen, like many, had a strong view that Bautista did nothing wrong and was instead penalised for brilliant riding: "Alvaro Bautista has been penalised for accuracy. He was millimetre perfect. The fat bit of the tyre was on the track, on the curb.
"As far as I’m concerned it wasn’t on the green. Yes there was a little bit of tyre over, like hovering over the green if you like, but the fact was he was millimetre perfect.
"From what I saw, I defy that any of it touched the green. Now he got penalised a place and it was Razgatlioglu who gained a place.
"If you go back to Magny-Cours he lost a place when there was the big controversy about Rea pointing out that Razgatlioglu had gone across the green. He did! He cut the corner, but again that one shouldn’t have been penalised because it had no advantage at all."
