MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

In the last race of the season, Xavi Vierge has a long lap penalty to serve for his crash that injured Iker Lecuona in the Superpole race. 24ºC weather saw out the summer of racing with a weekend attendance of 41,735.  

Toprak Razgatlioglu and BMW have never won at Jerez and Nicolo Bulega has never taken a triple, giving both of the top two a target beyond the already settled championship. Once again, Bulega threw his visor tear off at Razgatlioglu's wheel before the start, and as the lights went out, Bulega led Razgatlioglu ahead of another good start from Andrea Locatelli with Alex Lowes losing a spot. Michael van der Mark held fifth place ahead of Andrea Iannone and Petrucci.

Lap two, the fastest lap was set by Razgatlioglu in second place, a 1'39.246, before he took the lead from Bulega skipping his rear wheel into turn one. Van der Mark passed Alex Lowes at the end of the 600m straight leading to turn six. British Superbike runner up Tommy Bridewell crashed out at the end of lap three and Taz Mackenzie crashed shortly after.

Michael van der Mark continued his charge, taking third place from Locatelli who was then nudged by Alex Lowes back to sixth place as Iannone then took fourth from Lowes at the start of lap five. Danilo Petrucci took sixth from an unsettled Locatelli.

At the start of lap six, Razgatlioglu and Bulega were covered by half a second with the fight for third over three seconds behind them. Third to eighth place were covered by three seconds, Michael van der Mark leading Andrea Iannone, Alex Lowes, Danilo Petrucci, Andrea Locatelli and Garrett Gerloff.

Lap nine, Razgatlioglu led Bulega by half a second with van der Mark and the other five riders in his pack five seconds behind them and the gap was drawn out another seven tenths over the lap.

At half race distance, Toprak Razgatlioglu led Nicolo Bulega by over half a second, with Michael van der Mark almost seven seconds behind them. Andrea Iannone tried to make a pass into turn thirteen but he clipped van der Mark's rear wheel, leaving the BMW's transponder hanging by a wire, and had to run off line to avoid a crash, losing a place to Danilo Petrucci. Alvaro Bautista crashed out on lap eleven, his third crash of the weekend. Iannone tried the same pass he failed on can der Mark into turn thirteen, but this time it worked, putting him in fifth place behind Alex Lowes.

Bulega closed on Razgatlioglu over laps eleven and twelve, under a quarter of a second covering them at the start of lap thirteen and Bulega looked for passing places throughout the lap as he had more grip left in his tyres. Razgatlioglu was told to turn his traction control down a bit on his pitboard to compensate for the wearing tyre, as if he managed to hold the lead until Bulega's tyre caught up with the wear. Razgatlioglu's front tyre had no such trouble and he could hold the brakes to fend off Bulega's attacks over laps fourteen and fifteen. The pair lapped within two thousandths of a second of each other on lap fourteen with Razgatlioglu a tenth quicker on fifteen. Further back, Dominique Aegerter crashed out of the race.

Sixteen of twenty laps completed, Razgatlioglu led Bulega by a third of a second with van der Mark over ten seconds behind them. Over a second further back, Andrea Iannone was closing at the rate of half a second a lap. With smoke pluming from his bike Philipp Oettl pulled an exploding bike off the straight to start lap seventeen bringing out the red flags.

Toprak Razgatlioglu took the win ahead of Nicolo Bulega and they shared a fist bump while they both destroyed their tyres as they waited for Parc Fermé to open. They had to push their bikes in to join third-placed Michael van der Mark. Andrea Iannone took fourth place, the laps he needed to catch and pass van der Mark taken away by the red flag, with Alex Lowes fending off Danilo Petrucci and Garrett Gerloff. Iannone was in Parc Fermé as top independent and he was good to his sponsors, stuffing a massive bag of Pata crisps down his gullet. It's hungry work chucking a Ducati round Jerez.

Nicolo Bulega claimed the twenty fourth podium of his rookie career, equalling Alvaro Bautista's record from 2019. Toprak Razgatlioglu will put the number one plate on his BMW for 2025, giving them a valuable return on their investment. Razgatlioglu will take delivery of his title-winning bike to put in his home beside his title-winning Yamaha. 

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