Estoril WSBK: Rea beats Razgatlioglu to win Superpole Race
Jonathan Rea scored his third race win in five World Superbike races so far this season with a victory over Toprak Razgatlioglu in Sunday morning's Superpole Race at Estoril.
Kawasaki man Rea again opted for the standard soft compound Pirelli SC0 rear tyre for the 10-lap encounter, despite Scott Redding's victory in Saturday's first full-length feature race on the SCX qualifying rubber.
That left the reigning champion vulnerable at the start, and although he held the lead through the first sequence of corners, Redding passed for the lead at Turn 6 on the opening lap.
Ducati rider Redding's lead was short-lived however, as Yamaha man Razgatiloglu picked off Rea for second at Turn 1 next time by - coming close to a double pass - and muscled his way past Redding at Turn 3.
That was how the order remained out front until the fourth lap, as Redding ran wide and dropped to fourth place behind the GRT Yamaha of Garrett Gerloff, gifting Rea second place.
That allowed Rea to close up to the back of Razgatlioglu, and coming through the long final corner at the end of lap 5 the Kawasaki man was able to complete the move through Turns 1 and 2.
From there, Rea was able to reel off the remaining laps to score his first win at Estoril by 0.690s.
Redding recovered one position to finish third, clearing Gerloff at the first corner on lap 8.
On the second works Ducati, Michael Ruben Rinaldi briefly looked like he might sweep around the outside to grab the lead at the first corner of the race, but settled into fifth place and narrowly fended off Alex Lowes, who like his Kawasaki teammate Rea was on the SC0 rear tyre.
BMW riders Tom Sykes and Eugene Laverty were next up, followed by the GoEleven Ducati of Chaz Davies and the lead Honda of Alvaro Bautista.
The second Honda of Leon Haslam finished way down in 16th place.
Lucas Mahias (Puccetti Kawasaki) failed to make the most of his strong grid position as he crashed out at Turn 4 early on.
Race results:
| Cla | # | Rider | Bike | Laps | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 |  Jonathan Rea | Kawasaki | 10 | |
| 2 | 54 |  Toprak Razgatlioglu | Yamaha | 10 | 0.690 |
| 3 | 45 | Scott Redding | Ducati | 10 | 1.180 |
| 4 | 31 |  Garrett Gerloff | Yamaha | 10 | 2.059 |
| 5 | 21 |  Michael Ruben Rinaldi | Ducati | 10 | 3.583 |
| 6 | 22 | Alex Lowes | Kawasaki | 10 | 3.623 |
| 7 | 66 | Tom Sykes | BMW | 10 | 7.062 |
| 8 | 50 |  Eugene Laverty | BMW | 10 | 7.831 |
| 9 | 7 | Chaz Davies | Ducati | 10 | 8.969 |
| 10 | 19 |  Alvaro Bautista | Honda | 10 | 9.581 |
| 11 | 55 | Andrea Locatelli | Yamaha | 10 | 10.013 |
| 12 | 53 | Tito Rabat | Ducati | 10 | 10.850 |
| 13 | 60 |  Michael van der Mark | BMW | 10 | 11.419 |
| 14 | 47 | Axel Bassani | Ducati | 10 | 15.703 |
| 15 | 3 |  Kohta Nozane | Yamaha | 10 | 16.678 |
| 16 | 91 | Leon Haslam | Honda | 10 | 16.810 |
| 17 | 32 | Isaac Viñales | Kawasaki | 10 | 20.194 |
| 18 | 94 |  Jonas Folger | BMW | 10 | 22.250 |
| 19 | 84 |  Loris Cresson | Kawasaki | 10 | 39.192 |
| 20 | 23 |  Christophe Ponsson | Yamaha | 10 | 1'01.246 |
| 76 | Samuele Cavalieri | Kawasaki | 8 | ||
| 44 | Lucas Mahias | Kawasaki | 1 | ||
| View full results | |||||
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