Ducati rider Nicolo Bulega claimed a dominant flag-to-flag Race 1 victory at the WorldSBK season finale in Jerez.
The Italian crossed the line 3.8 seconds ahead of title rival Toprak Razgatlioglu, taking the championship fight to the final day for the first time since 2014.
Bulega and Razgatlioglu went side-by-side through Turns 1 and 2, but the championship leader held the lead into Turn 3, until the Italian pulled off a block pass at Turn 4.
After regaining the lead, Bulega pulled out a one-second advantage, while Razgatlioglu ran wide at Turn 6 and dropped two places to GoEleven’s Iannone and Bimota’s Lowes.
The lead grew further to 2.1s on Lap 3 as Bulega cleared off into the distance, with the Italian wanting to take the fight to Sunday.
Departing six-time champion Jonathan Rea suffered a high-speed crash at Turn 6 when his Yamaha slammed into the air fence, and the bike nearly landed back on top of him. Fortunately, he walked away seemingly uninjured.
After Lap 4, the lead trio of Bulega, Razgatlioglu and Iannone were all separated by five seconds. But the battle for third consisted of the GoEleven Ducati rider, Bimota’s Lowes and Honda’s Xavi Vierge.
For third place in the championship, Yamaha’s Andrea Locatelli made overtakes on rival Alvaro Bautista, before overtaking GRT Yamaha rider Remy Gardner for sixth place.
Not long after, the 40-year-old passed Gardner too, before finding rapid pace to overtake Locatelli at the Dani Pedrosa corner.
The Spaniard closed in on the trio to challenge for third place and found a way past Vierge and Lowes into Turn 1 on Lap 11.
While Bautista claimed fourth, Vierge capitalised on Lowes’ Turn 1 exit to overtake the Bimota rider for fifth.
That same lap, the factory Ducati rider made a lunge against Iannone at the final corner, but Iannone pulled a cut back move.
Though Bautista reclaimed third into Turn 1, he nearly tucked the front at Turn 3 but pulled off a remarkable save. He then had to overtake Honda rider Vierge again, before passing Iannone into Turn 6 one lap later.
Despite all the action for third place, Razgatlioglu and Bulega were 7.5 and 11.3 seconds up the road, highlighting just how dominant the title-challenging duo are.
Bulega’s victory sees the championship deficit reduce to 34 points, taking the title fight to the final day.
Razgatlioglu brought his BMW home in second place to bring much-needed points on the board as he closes in on a third title.
Bautista recovered from seventh to complete the podium places on his last weekend outing with the factory Ducati.
Iannone and Vierge finished their respective battle to seal fourth and fifth, respectively.
Bimota’s Lowes settled for sixth place, finishing five seconds clear of Yamaha riders Locatelli and Gardner.
Tarran Mackenzie produced a strong result of ninth, as Michael van der Mark rounded off the top 10 for BMW.
Axel Bassani claimed 11th for Bimota, finishing ahead of Iker Lecuona, Yari Montella and Garrett Gerloff.
Ryan Vickers finished in the final point-scoring position for Motocorsa in his final race weekend with the team.
Discussion about this post