The 2024 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship title race has been unpredictable in recent weeks and that theme continued at MotorLand Aragon.
After Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) took 79 points of Toprak Razgatlioglu’s (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) title lead in France and Italy, it was game on during the Tissot Aragon Round. Razgatlioglu returned to action and secured three podium finishes to extend his title lead by 26 points.
In Saturday’s Race 1, Razgatlioglu finished second behind Andrea Iannone (Team GoEleven) to gain 20 points over rival Bulega after a technical issue on the warm up lap for the restarted race put him out of contention.
That cost him a shot at either extending his lead or potentially reducing Razgatlioglu’s gains, with the gap standing at 33 points at the end of Saturday’s action as Razgatlioglu moved onto 385 points.
On Sunday, Bulega was able to remain in contention in both the Tissot Superpole Race and Race 2. In the 10-lap race, Bulega finished in third after an epic three-way battle between him, Razgatlioglu and Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) that was decided on the final lap.
That enabled Bautista to close in on both Bulega and Razgatlioglu, trailing them by 51 and 86 points respectively. With ‘El Turco’ ahead of Bulega, he extended his lead to 35 points. That went out to 39 points in Race 2, with Razgatlioglu finishing second behind Bautista while Bulega had early-race misfortune before battling back to P3.