Race 1
Alvaro Bautista got his World Superbike title defence off to the perfect start after dominating Race 1 in wet conditions. After rain threatened to fall during Superpole, Race 1 eventually got underway in full wet conditions as Toprak Razgatlioglu started from pole.
As the lights went out it was Bautista who made the best start as he immediately took the lead from the Yamaha rider. Following Bautista through was Jonathan Rea before the Kawasaki rider made his move for the lead at turn one.
There was an early crash for Michael Van Der Mark as the BMW rider suffered a violent highside on lap two. Starting to find his feet in the tricky conditions, Razgatlioglu took back third spot from Lowes at the start of lap five after out-braking the British rider on the run to turn one.
After extending his lead to 1.6 seconds, Rea started to lose ground as Bautista set his fastest lap of the race on lap five. Bautista took six tenths out of Rea in the opening few sectors of the lap before coming across the start-finish line 0.7s down.
With Bautista in touching distance of the race lead, Razgatlioglu was the rider to watch as he began closing in on the top two by over half a second. Bautista then caught Rea by surprise as he took the race lead with a move at ‘Stoner corner’ on lap ten.
Now in the lead and pushing on the pace, Bautista suffered a big moment at turn eight as he nearly came unstuck in the same way as Van Der Mark. Following his close moment, Bautista managed to settle into his rhythm once again as he started extending his lead to nearly a second.
With eight laps to go there was a change for P4 as Lowes crashed out of the race at turn two.
After seeing Bautista suffer a moment a few laps ago, Rea then followed suit as the rear of his ZX-10RR came around on the exit of turn ten. Rea managed to avoid a crash although he lost a few tenths which eliminated him from contention.
Bautisita would go on to take a dominant Race 1 victory with Rea 2nd and Toprak 3rd with his teammate Locatelli 4th and Bassani in a private works Ducatti rounding off the Top 5.
Superpole Race
Alvaro Bautista led Ducati’s first 1-2 finish of the season, while it was a race to forget for World Superbike rookies Remy Gardner and Dominqiue Aegerter after the pair collided at turn 4.
After winning Race 1 in wet conditions, Bautista continued his stunning form by taking victory in the first Superpole Race of the 2023 season.
From there, Bautista remained in the lead until the checkered flag while teammate Michael Ruben Rinaldi recovered from his horror show in Race 1 to claim second by six tenths from Razgatlioglu.
Talking of horror shows, that’s exactly what happened for six-time champion Jonathan Rea, with the Kawasaki rider only finishing seventh. Rea was beaten to P6 by Phillip Oettl who continues to impress aboard the GoEleven Ducati.
Race 2
There was drama through Race 2 in the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship during the Grand Ridge Brewery Australian Round at the iconic Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit as Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) made history with his fifth WorldSBK hat-trick in commanding fashion ahead of his teammate.
While Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK Team) could only manage eighth place as Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK) didn’t score points in Race 2.
Reigning Champion Bautista led from the start and he was able to bring teammate Michael Ruben Rinaldi with him in the early stages of the 22-lap encounter with the pair separated by less than a second for the first few laps, before Bautista started pulling a gap to his teammate to win by more than six seconds ahead of his teammate for the second Ducati 1-2 of the day in WorldSBK following their Tissot Superpole Result.
Bautista’s hat-trick means he became the first rider to take a second hat-trick at one circuit following his 2019 triple while he also became the first rider to take five WorldSBK hat-tricks.
it was a disastrous ending to the race for Razgatlioglu and Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK). Both were involved in the mega battle for fourth and Razgatlioglu looked to make a move around the outside of Lowes heading into Turn 4 on Lap 17.
Rea ended the race with an almost four-second gap to Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Team) in ninth place as he ended his first WorldSBK round inside the top ten.
