Aruba.it Racing – Ducati’s Nicolo Bulega completed a Sunday WorldSBK double at Magny Cours with victory in Race 2 with an impressive ride.
The Italian assumed the lead on Lap 1 and never relinquished it en route to firmly beating the rest of the field, with Barni Spark Ducati rider Danilo Petrucci making it a hat-trick of podiums in second.
Bonovo BMW rider Garrett Gerloff had an impressive ride too, taking his first WorldSBK podium since 2022.
Joining Toprak Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea on the sidelines for Race 2 was Ducati’s reigning champion Alvaro Bautista, who sustained a fractured rib during a crash in the Superpole race.
The result of the sprint format race on Sunday morning set the front three rows of the Race 2 grid, led by Bulega, Alex Lowes and Petrucci, who had to fight hard from 10th to claim a podium in the Superpole Race and Race 1.
Both Bonovo Action riders Scott Redding and Garrett Gerloff started from Row 2 with the Honda HRC riders of Xavi Vierge and Iker Lecouna also starting from a promising top nine slot.
Lights out and 21 laps began with Bulega leading Lowes and Petrucci into Turn 1 as Vierge and Michael van der Mark made their way into the top five.
There was a disaster for Lowes early on as he went wide and tumbled down the order with an apparent technical issue with his Kawasaki ZX-10RR.
This cleared Petrucci into second, but Bulega was already flying out in front to open up a healthy lead as Lowes tried his damndest to fight back through the field in 16th.
On Lap 3, the lead stood at 1.6s as Vierge made his way into third, past van der Mark and right on Petrucci’s tail.
Lowes meanwhile, recovered from his Lap 1 mishap, continued to climb the order, rising to 13th.
That was 12th by Lap 4 as Bulega’s lead had grown to two seconds.
Vierge’s chances of challenging Petrucci in second faded quickly and instead, he found himself under pressure from van der Mark, who made a move stick to claim third, closely followed by Lowes’ Kawasaki team-mate Axel Bassani.
Bassani, who has struggled for form during his first campaign on the ZX10-RR, dispatched van der Mark for third at the Turn 5 hairpin on Lap 5 – chasing his first podium in Kawasaki green.
Bulega had feared he wouldn’t have the fitness to sustain a full-race distance after his Lap 1 crash in Race 1, but seven laps into Race 2, the Italian enjoyed a lead of over two and a half seconds.
Petrucci was also in clear air in second, with the battle for the final podium position behind him raging between Bassani, van der Mar, Gerloff and Vierge.
Lowes, charging hard on the Kawasaki, was by no means out of podium contention as he sought to break into the top-10, block-passing the Pata Prometeon Yamaha of Andrea Locatelli into Turn 5 with 14 laps to go.
Bassani, trying his best to keep hold of third, left the track without losing a second of time, incurring a long-lap penalty as a result and dropped to 11th as a consequence, promoting Lowes to ninth and van der Mark to the front of the fight for the final podium spot.
With 12 laps to go, Gerloff stole a march on van der Mark, moving up into third at the popular overtaking spot that was the Turn 5 hairpin.
Lowes used that same spot two laps late to surge past GYTR GRT Yamaha rider Remy Gardner into seventh and to move just two seconds within a third-place spot.
He used the same manoeuvre next time around the Magny Cours circuit to sit up the Honda of Vierge, taking sixth in the process as his brother Sam sadly retired with technical trouble aboard his MarcVDS Ducati.
The Kawasaki man’s charge advanced further with eight laps to go as Lecuona pulled up with a fault on his CBR1000 RR-R.
However, Lowes’ charge could well halt at fifth, with the top riders stretched out across the Magny Cours circuit.
With six laps remaining, Bulega enjoyed a healthy gap over Petrucci, who indeed had substantial breathing room over Gerloff and van der Mark, who led Lowes by nine-tenths of a second.
Still, Lowes wasn’t going to rest on his laurels and he went four-tenths faster than van der Mark on Lap 17 to get right on van der Mark’s tail for fourth and on Lap 18 he got the job done at Turn 13.
First and second looked like a done deal, but Gerloff had to keep up the pace to keep Lowes at bay, who was trying his damnedest to close a 1.9s gap to the third-place man with two laps to go.
There was no such trouble for Bulega on the final two tours of the circuit, however, and he signed off on a commanding victory with Petrucci taking second.
Gerloff was able to hold onto third, his first podium for the Bonovo BMW squad with Lowes’ fight-back charge ending in fourth.
Van der Mark rounded out the top five finishing clear of a four-bike scrap between Gardner, Redding, Vierge and Lecuona.
Locatelli completed the top-10, with Bassani finishing 11th after his long-lap penalty put an end to his early race promise.
Team GoEleven Ducati rider Andrea Iannone finished 12th, with GYTR GRT Yamaha stand-in Alessandro Delbianco, Kawasaki Puccetti Racing’s Tito Rabat and Team Motocorsa Racing’s Michael Ruben Rinaldi rounding out the points-paying positions.
Victory for Bulega in Race 2 saw him cut his deficit to championship leader Razgatlioglu to 55 points.
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