WorldSBK: Alvaro Bautista Wins Race Two at Portimao

Alvaro Bautista claims victory in Portimao to ruin Razgatlioglu’s treble!

After Toprak Razgatlioglu won the Superpole race on Sunday morning he inherits pole position for the final race of the weekend. Alvaro Bautista and Jonathan Rea joined the Turkish rider on the front row of the grid.

The final European race of the season saw Razgatlioglu take the holeshot when the red lights went out. Rea and Bautista followed the Turkish rider into turn one on the first lap. Rea grabbed the lead off of Razgatlioglu down into turn five on the opening lap.

Bautista had been lining up a pass on Razgatlioglu throughout the opening laps. Until his Ducati got out of shape coming down the hill into turn nine.

On lap four the Motocorsa Ducati rider, Axel Bassani, crashed out of the race for the first time this season.

At the start of lap seven the lead changed hands as Rea was passed by Razgatlioglu down into turn one. Bautista was looming large in third behind the Yamaha and Kawasaki in first and second.

The Ducati rocket passed Razgatlioglu into turn one on lap nine of the race, putting Bautista into second place. Bautista appeared to be on a mission to take the lead off of Rea and check out.

With 11 laps to go Bautista took the lead on the start finish straight as he shot straight passed the Kawasaki rider of Rea. The gap at the front already began to extend as Bautista was pushing hard.

On lap 11 Rea was put back into third as Razgatlioglu passed Rea down into turn one. Rea may have more problems to come as Michael Ruben Rinaldi looked to be lining up the six time Champion.

With eight laps to go Rea seemed to have started to struggle as he began to drop back from Bautista and Razgatlioglu. Team HRC rider, Iker Lecuona, crashed out on the same lap as he lost the front.

Razgatlioglu retakes the lead into turn 13 with seven laps left after he pulled off a move on Bautista. However, the top speed of the Ducati shot passed Razgatlioglu again down the start finish straight.

Within seven laps Bautista completely left his competition for dead as he claimed victory in Portimao! Razgatlioglu finished in second 1.6 seconds behind Bautista, with Rea once again in third place.

Images from worldsbk.com