Argentina WSBK: Razgatlioglu beats Redding to win by 0.046s

Starting second on the grid, Razgatlioglu eased past polesitter Redding into Turn 1 to take the lead of the race, with Jonathan Rea slotting into third place on the factory Kawasaki.

Within two laps Razgatlioglu had built a 0.8s gap over the chasing pack and he went on to extend that to nearly a second before Redding started reeling into his advantage in the second half of the race.

By lap 7, Redding had managed to close within three tenths off the Turkish rider and he continued to bridge the gap over the following two tours.

The battle between the two continued into the final lap, with Redding making a lunge into the Turn 7 left-hander, the preferred spot for overtaking on the track. But the Ducati rider ran too deep into the turn, allowing Razgatlioglu to retake the lead and get a better exit into the long back straight.

Redding did manage to fight back after his Turn 7 error and began a drag race to the finish coming out of the final corner, but Razgatlioglu held on to the lead by just 0.046s to chalk up his 13th victory of the season.

Rea was unable to threaten the leading duo for victory despite an encouraging start from fifth on the grid, finishing nearly 3.5s behind in third. The Kawasaki rider has slipped 34 points off Razgatlioglu ahead of the second full-distance race of the weekend later on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Axel Bassani continued to impress on the Motocorsa Ducati, finishing as the top independent rider in fourth ahead of the factory BMW of Michael van der Mark and the second works Yamaha of Andrea Locatelli.

Garrett Gerloff was next up in seventh on the GRT Yamaha, while factory Ducati rider Michael Ruben Rinaldi slipped to eighth in the final order after running as high as fifth on lap 6.

Alex Lowes also fell down the pack in the final stages of the race, the Kawasaki rider bagging just a single point in ninth ahead of Honda duo Leon Haslam and Alvaro Bautista.

Superpole race results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Gap
1	54	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Yamaha
2	45	Scott Redding	Ducati	0.046
3	1	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki	3.419
4	47	Axel Bassani	Ducati	5.407
5	60	Michael van der Mark	BMW	8.556
6	55	Andrea Locatelli	Yamaha	9.608
7	31	Garrett Gerloff	Yamaha	9.821
8	21	Michael Ruben Rinaldi	Ducati	10.415
9	22	Alex Lowes	Kawasaki	12.063
10	91	Leon Haslam	Honda	15.170
11	19	Alvaro Bautista	Honda	15.685
12	53	Tito Rabat	Kawasaki	18.017
13	7	Chaz Davies	Ducati	18.470
14	3	Kohta Nozane	Yamaha	20.327
15	50	Eugene Laverty	BMW	20.341
16	36	Leandro Mercado	Honda	21.262
17	32	Isaac Viñales	Kawasaki	21.534
18	76	Samuele Cavalieri	Ducati	26.152
19	23	Christophe Ponsson	Yamaha	27.693
20	4	Luciano Ribodino	Kawasaki	47.417
21	39	Marco Solorza	Kawasaki	51.079
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