Aruba.it Racing – Ducati’s Alvaro Bautista outperformed his championship rivals with two superb block passes in Aragon to pick up his third World Superbikes victory this season in Sunday’s Superpole Race.
ROKiT BMW’s Toprak Razgatlıoğlu and Nicolo Bulega fought Bautista hard all the way, but the 39-year-old outshone the duo in the closing laps to add to his race win tally.
Bulega catapulted off the start line from pole into Turn 1 with fellow Ducati riders second, third and fourth.
Andrea Iannone, Bautista and Danilo Petrucci’s V4 Ducatis launched off the line with Razgatlıoğlu on the BMW behind in fifth.
By the end of Lap 1, Razgatlıoğlu barged his way through Petrucci to move up to fourth before making an audacious move on Bautista on Lap 2.
The Turkish rider had further momentum to overtake Iannone to snatch second, with factory Ducati rider Bautista catching his V4 competitor by surprise too.
On Lap 3, Alex Lowes lost the throttle of his Kawasaki to crash out from fourth place, promoting Iannone and Petrucci.
The championship protagonists Razgatlıoğlu and Bulega went to and fro in the final corner, but the BMW rider displayed rapid pace that was nearly a second faster than his main rival.
The events repeated on Lap 4, but Razgatlıoğlu made a move and stuck it on the Ducati’s inside into Turn 1.
The Arbua.it Ducati duo of Bulega and Bautista weren’t willing to give up without a fight.
Bulega divebombed Razgatlioglu into Turn 1 at the halfway stage, with the leading trio a cut above the rest. 3.1s separated Bautista in third to Iannone in fourth, with the gap expanding by the corner, with it once again looking impossible to predict who would finish where.
Razgatlıoğlu performed a late lunge on Bulega and successfully completed a block pass before the long back straight, which allowed Bautista back into the fight, but with two laps to go the Turkish rider stretched a small gap out in front.
Bautista repeated Razgatlıoğlu’s move on Bulega before the straight to take second, with the veteran wanting to snatch the race win on the final lap.
Bautista then produced a block pass on Razgatlıoğlu to snatch the race win away from his old championship rival.
The 39-year-old sealed his third race win of the season in front of his home fans, with Razgatlıoğlu and Bulega settling for second and third.
Iannone held off the in-form Bonovo BMW rider Garrett Gerloff to take fourth, with Petrucci ending his Superpole race in sixth.
BMW’s Michael van der Mark finished in eighth and was the filling in a Honda sandwich, with Iker Lecuona ahead in seventh, while Xavi Vierge finished in ninth.
Scott Redding rounded out the top-10. The Yamaha trio of Andrea Locatelli, Jonathan Rea, and Remy Gardner finished 11th, 12th, and 13th, respectively.
Last year’s race one winner, Michael Ruben Rinaldi, came home in 14th, with Axel Bassani behind in 15th as the leading Kawasaki rider.
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