It’s the first weekend of World Superbike and alvaro bautista makes history to start in a red-tinged Australian round ducati. The Spaniard closes the first round of his title defense with a double on Sunday that added to his victory on Saturday gives him a hat trick in Phillip Island, like that of 2019. Something unprecedented in the antipodes, where no one had harvested two triplets to date. The rider from Talavera thus adds his 35th victory and surpasses Sykes as the fifth rider with the most Superbike wins. And also the party in Borgo Panigale is double, since Michael Ruben Rinaldi he seconded his teammate on the podium in both sleeves, demonstrating his strength over the other factories.
The day began with Álvaro Bautista sweeping the Superpole Race, the short run. From the second position the ‘1’ stormed the first place in Toprak Razgatlioglu while his partner did the same after getting rid of a group in which rhea was unable to advance when he was affected by a casting of aegerter in turn 4. And the first set gave little more of itself, beyond the joint fall of the two grt yamaha due to overconfidence gardner that was worn aegerter when they were fighting for the top-5. Both Panigale They signed the first 1-2 of the year, with the Turk from Yamaha in third place and Jonathan Rea, seventh.
For the second challenge of the day, the motorcycles of the Aruba they moved quickly to the front as the Yamaha of razgatlioglu he went behind and the Kawasaki of rhea he was trying to make up ground from the third row. A group formed behind the backs of Bautista and Rinaldi made up of lowesRhea, Bassani, Razgatlioglu, Bassani, Oettl and Lecuona, who were fighting for the last place in the box with Locatelli, one step ahead. The fight lived its abrupt moment when lowes he went to the ground in 4 and took with him razgatlioglu. The six-time champion, for his part, lost pace and ground in the last half of the race, showing that he could do nothing for that last place on the podium, which finally went to the Yamaha of Locatelli. axel bassanifirst independent with the Ducati del Motocorsa, Philipp Oettlfrom GoEleven and Iker Lecuona with the Sling they closed the top-6. Good race again for the Valencian with the CBR, which proves not to be so far from the others, taking the Ducati del Aruba out of the equation, as the pre-season tests said. Seventh was the rookie aegerter and eighth, rhea.
Álvaro Bautista leaves for Indonesia with a firm lead, 62 points, against Andrea Locatelli’s 34 and Rea’s 31, the same as Rinaldi. Fifth in points is Bassani with 25 and Razgatlioglu takes 23.
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Bautista: “We can call the circuit ‘Baustralia'”
“It has been a dream weekend and there is no better way to start a championship. In addition, there have been three different races, with rain, with soft tires in the short race and with hard tires in race 2. I have known how to adapt, able to understand how to make those tires work. I am very happy with the bike. I’m not much of looking at statistics, I prefer to look at the present, the statistics for journalists or for when I retire and look at them at home. Although it is always nice to break records. We can now call the circuit ‘Baustralia’, although I am a better driver than telling jokes”.
SuperSport: Bulega double with Ducati
Ahead of the Ducati party in the top category of the SBK World Championship, Nicoló Bulega kicked off Sunday with a win on the Panigale V2 to close his one-two at Phillip Island in SSP. The geese on the track forced the red flag to be drawn, which aborted the fight between the Italian, Stefano Manzi (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha) and Can Oncu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing). When two thirds of the race was covered when the flag came out, lap 15, the sleeve ended with the Italian in first place after having taken the lead two laps earlier after overtaking his compatriot. The Turk, all weekend with Razgatlioglu close to him, closed the drawer. Jorge Navarro, for his part, after ninth on Saturday, improved his result on Sunday with a sixth place in the race that closed his first weekend in the SuperSport World Championship.
