Donington Park WorldSBK: Alvaro Bautista ends Ducati's nightmare with victory in Race 1

Alvaro Bautista has taken his 15th win of the season after conquering Donington Park for the first time in his WorldSBK career.
Alvaro Bautista, Ducati WorldSBK Donington Park 2023
Alvaro Bautista, Ducati WorldSBK Donington Park 2023

As the lights went o🥀ut, Alvaro Bautista made a briallint launch as he took the lead away from Jonathan Rea.

Fu🎃rther back there was a collision between Garrett Gerloff and Bradley Ray, which resulted in both riders going down.

Gerloff managed to re-join the action w🅰hile Michael Ruben Rinaldi also tumbled down the leaderboard. A mistake in sector three saw him run off the track as he dropped to last place.

His factory Ducati teammate Bauཧtista then made a mistake of his own which allowed𓂃 Rea to take back the lead on lap two. 

Bautista was then demoted to third as a slow exit out of turn nine saw Razgatlioglu get c📖lose before performing a late-braking move at the Melbourne Loop. 

W𝓀hile♎ Rea and Razgatlioglu pushed on out front, Bautista was not letting the two leaders get away, as he instead closed in to make it a leading trio. 

A three🌼-time winner at Donington last season, Razgatlioglu’s bid to make it back-to-back hat-tricks at the British roun🐻d started with a move on Rea at the same Melbourne Loop.

However, Rea regained t💛he lead on lap seven which allowed Bautista to get very close to the Yamaha rider. 

It also helped the likes of Alex Lowes, Danilo Petrucci and Axel Bassani close in on th꧂e𓆏 lead group.

As Razgatlioglu overtook Rea for a second time at the start of lap eight, Race 1 went from bad 🤡to worse for Bonovo Action BMW as Loris Baz retired.  

With Rea struggling for pace, Bauti𝕴sta pounced🅘 on the six-time world champion at turn nine, before immediately closing down Razgatlioglu.

Bautista’s charge then saw him regain the lead of the race on lap nine, after using his supeior straight line speed around the outside of Razgatlioglu on the approach to🌼 turn nine.

Out front and facing very little pressure for the fir🍬st time, Bautista then set the fastest lap of the race on lap 10. He repeated that feat on the next lap around as Razgatlioglu was finding it d🌊ifficult to stick with the Ducati rider.

Despite keeping the gap atꦓ around six tenths, Razgatlioglu lost a big amount of time on lap 14 as Bautista’s lead grew to 1.2 seconds.

As Bautista continued his dominant showing by extedning his to over tw🎉o seconds, Petrucci made a great move on Lowes to claim ꧃P4. 

Eyeing his first WorldSBK podium, Petr𝔍ucꦰci then took four tenths out of Rea on lap 17 before finding more time on lap 18. 

Petrucci🐻 managed to get within three tenths of Rea but that was as good as it got for the Italian as Rea extended his advantage in the f𒁃inal two laps.

Bautista's win is Ducati's first at Doniꦡngton Park sinc𝓀e Carlos Checa in 2011. 

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