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Aragon WSBK: Bautista scores back-to-back wins for Ducati

Ducati returnee Alvaro Bautista romped to a second consecutive World Superbike victory of the weekend at Aragon, beating the Kawasaki of six-time champion Jonathan Rea.

Alvaro Bautista, Aruba.it Racing Ducati

Alvaro Bautista, Aruba.it Racing Ducati

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Having ended a two-year victory drought in only his second race back at Ducati earlier on Sunday, Bautista replicated the same result in the final race of the season opener after emerging on top in an early duel with Rea.

The Spanish rider didn’t make the best of the starts from pole position, allowing Rea through into the lead at Turn 1 and Toprak Razgatlioglu up to second place at Turn 4. 

However, having quickly repassed the Yamaha, Bautista retook the initiative at Turn 16 with a brave dive up the inside of Rea into the long left-hander.

Rea and Bautista continued to fight for position for the first part of the race, with the lead changing hands multiple times over the course of each lap.

Their battle was effectively decided on lap 5 when, having slipped again behind Bautista, Rea ran wide over Turn 1 while defending from Michael Ruben Rinaldi and dropped to fourth behind Razgatlioglu’s Yamaha.

Rea did repass Razgatloglu quickly but it wasn’t until lap 11 that he could complete a move on Rinaldi, by which time Bautista had built a 1.5s buffer from himself up front.

And having yet more pace to unleash on his Ducati, Bautista cruised to the finish line, taking the chequered with a victory margin of 4.4s from Rea as the Ulsterman was forced to settle for the second spot yet again after winning Saturday’s opening contest.

Behind, Rinaldi couldn’t keep up with the pace of the leading duo as the race wore on, dropping behind reigning champion Razgatlioglu with just three laps to run and missing out on a podium finish for the second race running.

Rea’s teammate Alex Lowes bagged a healthy tally of points for Kawasaki after finishing fifth, with Axel Bassani again finishing as the top independent rider on the Motocorsa Ducati in sixth.

Bonovo MGM rider Loris Baz rose from 13th on the grid to seventh at the flag on what was otherwise a woeful race for BMW, after passing the two factory Hondas by lap 7 of 18.

Xaxi Vierge and Iker Lecuona were classified eighth and 10th respectively aboard the two HRC-entered CBR1000RRs, separated by the GRT Yamaha of Garrett Gerloff.

Ilya Mikhalchik bagged a solitary point in 15th after a crash in the Superpole race forced him to start from the back of the pack, while Scott Redding’s nightmare first weekend with BMW continued as he was forced to retire from the race with technical problems.

Kohta Nozane was the only other retiree from the race, the Japanese rider suffering a spectacular crash just a few laps from the finish.

Aragon WSBK - Race 2 results:

Cla # Rider Bike Gap
1 19 Spain Alvaro Bautista
Ducati
2 65 United Kingdom Jonathan Rea
Kawasaki 4.393
3 1 Turkey Toprak Razgatlioglu
Yamaha 6.223
4 21 Italy Michael Ruben Rinaldi
Ducati 8.817
5 22 United Kingdom Alex Lowes
Kawasaki 12.247
6 47 Italy Axel Bassani
Ducati 15.775
7 76 France Loris Baz
BMW 23.925
8 97 Spain Xavi Vierge
Honda 24.790
9 31 United States Garrett Gerloff
Yamaha 25.406
10 7 Spain Iker Lecuona
Honda 25.570
11 44 France Lucas Mahias
Kawasaki 27.641
12 50 Ireland Eugene Laverty
BMW 28.867
13 5 Philipp Oettl
Ducati 29.325
14 2 Italy Roberto Tamburini
Yamaha 29.555
15 37 Illia Mykhalchyk
BMW 31.843
16 29 San Marino Luca Bernardi
Ducati 43.246
17 16 Italy Gabriele Ruiu
BMW 45.734
18 23 France Christophe Ponsson
Yamaha 46.349
19 55 Italy Andrea Locatelli
Yamaha 55.354
20 35 Malaysia Hafizh Syahrin
Honda 59.398
21 36 Argentina Leandro Mercado
Honda 1'01.009
22 52 Oliver Konig
Kawasaki 1'07.061
23 84 Belgium Loris Cresson
Kawasaki 1'18.230
3 Japan Kohta Nozane
Yamaha
45 United Kingdom Scott Redding
BMW

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