World Superbikes: Jonathan Rea cuts Toprak Razgatlioglu's lead as Scott Redding wins in Argentina

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Northern Ireland's Rea now sits 30 points behind leader Razgatlioglu with one round left

Jonathan Rea cut Toprak Razgatlioglu's lead in the World Superbike standings to 30 points after a thrilling second feature race in Argentina.

Six-time champion Rea edged the Turkish rider to finish second behind Ducati's Scott Redding.

Needing to beat Razgatlioglu, Rea started superbly to lead the race before Redding took control.

While Rea was unable to stop Redding, he kept his nerve to finish more than a second ahead of Razgatlioglu.

With 62 points available in the season-closing round in Indonesia on 20 and 21 November, Rea knew he needed to finish ahead of the Yamaha-mounted Razgatlioglu, who was aiming to secure a treble at the San Juan Villicum circuit after winning Saturday's feature race and Sunday's Superpole contest.

The Northern Irishman, 34, started third on the grid but made an excellent start to vault himself into contention before the race lead changed hands on several occasions in a nail-biting spectacle.

Redding managed to overtake Razgatlioglu on lap 10 and the Englishman cemented his place at the front with a stellar lap 13 to establish a two-second lead and navigated the climactic stages of the race to secure an impressive win.

With Redding out in front, Kawasaki rider Rea and Razgatlioglu battled for second place with the defending champion claiming a crucial overtake on lap 16 before breaking away to reduce the deficit to 30 points ahead of next month's climactic stage in Indonesia.

"The position doesn't really matter so much today, for me it was about the feeling on the bike," Rea told Eurosport.

"I want to thank my team, especially Perry, because he never gave up investigating my problems. At this race we've found something good.

"I could feel from the out lap that I had a bike to fight with today and thanks to the team, we won't give up, we'll keep working really hard."

Razgatlioglu edges Redding to take Superpole

Earlier on Sunday, Razgatlioglu edged out Redding in a photo finish to the Superpole race to extend his lead over Rea to 34 points.

Yamaha-mounted Razgatlioglu claimed the lead from pole-sitter Redding into Turn One of the opening lap, and while the Ducati rider pushed the championship leader hard in the final lap, the 25-year-old held on to win by 0.046 of a second.

Redding lost ground after running wide at the final corner in lap three and after having recovered to put the leader under intense pressure, the Englishman fell short as Razgatlioglu held on to clinch his 13th race win of the season.

Kawasaki's six-time champion Rea completed the podium after starting in fifth on the grid, beating Axel Bassani and Michael van der Mark.

World Superbike Championship standings

Toprak Razgatlioglu (Tur)

Yamaha

531

Jonathan Rea (GB)

Kawasaki

501

Scott Redding (GB)

Ducati

465

Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Ita)

Ducati

278

Andrea Locatelli (Ita)

Yamaha

270

Michael van der Mark (Ned)

Yamaha

236

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