World Superbike, Donington Park - Race Results (1)

Reigning world champion Toprak Razgatlioglu has taken a dominant win in the opening race of the Donington Park World Superbike weekend, while 2022 title leader Alvaro Bautista crashed out of an intense fight for second with Jonathan Rea.

Under baking sunshine, and in front of a large crowd, Razgatlioglu put a firm move on fellow front-row starters Rea (pole) and Alex Lowes to snatch the lead into turn one.

Both green machines were soon threatening the Yamaha, but when Rea's ZX-10 began bucking wildly into the Fogarty Esses it also held up Lowes in the aftermath.

Rea briefly dropped to fifth while Bautista was the main beneficiary of the Kawasaki chaos, the points leader - fearing his worst weekend of the season on the Panigale - leaping to second behind Razgatlioglu.

While Razgatlioglu edged away, Bautista's Ducati came under sustained attack from Rea - but the Spaniard kept his cool, while Rea survived another sideways moment at the Esses.

A move by Rea on Bautista into the Melbourne hairpin several laps later was also rebuffed, as was a lunge by the #65 into the following final hairpin. Rea finally made it stick a lap later, giving the six-time world champion and pre-race favourite, 15 laps in which to bridge a 3-second gap to Razgatlioglu...

...Instead, Rea found himself on the defensive from Bautista, who momentarily repassed and continued to relentlessly hound the Northern Irishman.

Their close combat ended any hope of catching Razgatlioglu, whose lead peaked at over 7-seconds on his way to a jubilant second win of the season, leaving the title leaders locked in a straight fight for the remaining podium places.

A mistake by Rea into the final hairpin gifted second back to Bautista with 9 laps remaining, but disaster struck for Bautista at the same corner next time around - the six-time race 2022 winner losing the front of his Panigale at the apex and suffering his first race crash of the season. 

Bautista remounted and initially tried to continue, in last, but soon pitted and retired.

All of which means Bautista, who began today's race with a 36-point lead, will now take a 16-point advantage over Rea and 54-point lead over Razgatlioglu into Sunday's Superpole race.

Bautista's mistake promoted Scott Redding to third, the ex-MotoGP rider then trying desperately to defend a debut BMW podium from Lowes, but the Kawasaki rider broke free with three laps remaining for his first rostrum of the year.

With Bautista out, Axel Bassani was the top Ducati in fifth, with Michael Rinaldi completing the top six.

Reigning BSB champion Tarran Mackenzie claimed 14th on his race debut with the WorldSBK spec R1, just ahead of Leon Haslam.