The Pata Yamaha rider, winner of the pre🌜vious two races, joined Saturday winner Jonathan Rea in correctly se♑lecting intermediate tyres.

However, while Rea held a top five place during thꦺe difficult early laps when the track was at its wettest, Razgatlioglu sank to 13th.

The early time lost to Rea would come back to haunt Razgatlioglu when, with the wet ty🍃re riders forced to pit anღd out of the victory equation, the Turkish star passed Danilo Petrucci for second at the midway stage - but was still 11-seconds behind the Kawasaki.

Razgatlioglu slashed Rea’s adv𒆙antage ♉to four-seconds by the chequered flag, indicating what might have been without his early woes.

But with reigning champion Alvaro Bautista starting on wets and only managing twelfth, Razgatlioglu still made his bﷺiggest championship gains of the season, cutting the Ducati rider’s title lead to 54-points.

A maximum of 37 points are available on Sunday, followed by anothe꧅r four rounds (and 248 points) after the summer break.

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꧋“The beginning of the race was difficult for me because I’m not very experienced with the intermediate tyre,” Razgatlioglu told WorldSBK.com. “I didn’t understand the grip because this is only the third time in my life I’ve tried the intermediate tyre.

“But after 5-6 laps I started pushing and especially in the last 6 laps I pushed a lot for the win but it was impossible because I think the gap was 15 seconds at one stage and it was four seconds at the finish🌠.

“Maybe if I’d been a bit faster at the star✤t I’d have been fighting for the win.”

Razgatlioglu revealed he was even considering fitting slicks onꦚ the grid, but was thinking about the championship even before taking a bite out of Bautista's lead.

“We were talking about slick and intermed🌳iate tyres. I was thinking to gamble [on slicks] but I said it’s better to be safer b𝔍ecause the championship is not finished," Razgatlioglu said.

“I almost crashed at corner 13 at the beginning when I locked the rear. So any🌄way we are lucky to finish second, e♐specially with Alvaro 12th.

“Now it’s 54 points between me and Alvaro, it’s nice, a good number! We will see tomor🐼row…

“I was happy a🐽fter ten laps today on intermediates but in general I’m not really happy because it looked like this weekend without the rain I could win, so I hope tomorrow we are winning again. Even if it rainജs.”