2021 Misano World Superbike Race 1 Result: Save It On Your Elbow

Five thousand spectators were allowed into Misano to watch racing on a 28ºC day. All riders on the grid chose the SCX rear tyre, having taken the weather and the 48ºC track in to account, so there wasn't a tyre war in play. 

Jonathan Rea led into turn one, but had Toprak Razgatlioglu and Michael Ruben Rinaldi trying to push past. Rinaldi pushed past at turn two, and as they continued their fight into turn three, Razgatlioglu slipped under the pair to nip underneath for the lead, but Rinaldi, whose house is a mere twenty minutes from the track, passed Razgatlioglu a few turns later. Scott Redding and Jonathan Rea swapped back and forth, fighting over third place, with Rea winning out enough to take second off Razgatlioglu before the end of the lap. 

Lap two, Rinaldi and Rea stretched out a lead from Redding and Razgatlioglu who had Alex Lowes, Tom Sykes, Lucas Mahias and Chaz Davies. Jonathan Rea set the fastest lap keeping up with Michael Ruben Rinaldi, and for a few laps they eked out a lead over Scott Redding as Toprak Razgatlioglu and Redding dropped Alex Lowes. 

On lap four, with the leading pair over a second clear, Toprak Razgatlioglu slipped under Scott Redding but the Ducati rider doesn't like giving up a place and the pair fought over several corners until Razgatlioglu made it stick at turn eight. By lap nine Razgatlioglu had over a second of a gap to Redding, and was three seconds behind Rea.

Then, Jonathan Rea crashed, right on the tail of Michael Ruben Rinaldi, sliding the front at turn two fully leaned over. His right elbow and knee held the bike up and he pushed really hard on the front until it gripped and he recovered, only to be facing off the track. After a short excursion off track, he watched Toprak Razgatlioglu pass him and rejoined the race behind him and in front of Scott Redding, turning a crash into a four second blip and one lost place.

On lap twelve, Chaz Davies crashed out at turn four which elevated Garrett Gerloff into fifteenth place and a point scoring position. The remaining race at the front was a stretched out affair, with Rinaldi, Razgatlioglu, Rea, Redding, Lowes and Sykes all nursing at-least-second-wide gaps front and back, looking for all intents and purposes like they were settled in their places, and the only on-track action happened when Alvaro Bautista and Axel Bassani caught Tom Sykes, the pair eventually passing him on the last lap.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi took a convincing win on an Italian bike at an Italian track with the first crowd in a while able to see a local hat trick, the first since Melandri won at this track in 2017. Toprak Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea rounded out the podium with Scott Redding and Alex Lowes taking fourth and fifth places.

With his first win of the year, Michael Ruben Rinaldi kept up five places in the charts to fifth place. Toprak Razgatlioglu's second place consolidated his second place in the championship, reducing Jonathan Rea's lead to thirty one points, and increasing his lead over Scott Redding by seven points to ten. Alex Lowest in fifth lost a few points to Redding ahead of him and to Rinaldi who ended up twenty three points behind him.

On the podium, Razgatlioglu asked, after the Italian anthem played once, if they were going to play it again, once for rider and once for manufacturer. As it became clear they wouldn't, he made his alcohol-free exit clear as Rinaldi and Rea wasted their bottles of Prosecco in style, with Rea wearing most of Rinaldi's fizzy wine on his back. 

Results: