World Superbikes: Jonathan Rea loses more ground in title race after second successive crash at Portimao

It was the reigning world champion’s second successive crash after Rea came off his Kawasaki at high speed after he took the lead of Saturday’s opening race.

Rea is now 49 points behind Toprak Razgatlioglu going into the final race of the weekend on Sunday (14:00 BST) and faces an uphill struggle to retain the title he has made his own since his maiden championship success in 2015.

Pata Yamaha rider Razgatlioglu, who pulled out all the stops to beat Scott Redding in a thrilling race on Saturday, finished in sixth position in the tricky conditions.

Speaking after his crash on Saturday, Rea said: “I’m relatively okay, just a little bit beaten up because I crashed very fast and when I went into the gravel I started tumbling.

“I was very happy to have my Arai helmet and Alpinestars leathers because they kept me pretty safe, and apart from some bumps and bruises I’m relatively quite fine.

“Congratulations to the guys at the front, I felt like I could have been there, battling – my pace all weekend has been really strong – but I have another chance to do a good job.”

On his prospects of winning the title for a seventh consecutive year, Rea added: “Anything is possible. We’ve seen the mistakes Toprak and his team have made this year and now I feel more free, because there’s not so much to lose.

“I can go more all-in every race, do what I can. Of course, the goal can be the championship now, just to maximise every opportunity and try to do the best we can and see what happens come Mandalika.”

The Superpole race was won by Dutchman Michael van der Mark, who gave BMW’s new M1000RR its first WSBK victory and the German manufacturer’s first win in the series since 2013.

Van der Mark took the lead from early pacesetter Redding and pulled away to win by 5.3s, with Frenchman Loris Baz completing the top three, 1.7s down on Redding.

Razgatlioglu’s Yamaha team-mate Andrea Locatelli was next ahead of Alvaro Bautista (Team HRC Honda).

Leon Haslam had been challenging for third place when he was caught out by the conditions. The factory Honda rider managed to remount and return to the race, but Haslam crashed again.

Eugene Laverty, filling in for the injured Tom Sykes in the official BMW Motorrad team, finished ninth, equalling his result from Saturday’s race.

Two rounds of the championship remain after this weekend in Argentina (October 15-17) and Indonesia (November 19-21).