Bautista victorious, calls Razgatlioglu move ‘very strange, risky’

Bautista took the lead of the race on the opening lap after breezing past Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea on the back-straight. 

But too keen to respond, Razgatlioglu made a rash move to the inside of the Ducati rider and with it lost the front-end of his Yamaha R1.

• San Juan WorldSBK Race (1) Results: Alvaro Bautista wins as Toprak Razgatlioglu makes huge mistake

The reigning world champion came very close to clipping Bautista, who instead had to sit up and lose three places as a result. 

Speaking about his win and the near-miss, Bautista said: “I felt very lucky today because in the first lap when Toprak crashed he nearly hit me. I was so lucky there! 

“After that I needed a couple of laps to understand what was happening because it was very, very strange that in the first lap he did this kind of action. It was very risky. 

“But in any case, after that, I just tried to be focused and not think that Toprak was out or something like that. Just to be focused on my riding and my bike, try to get the feeling and try to get the pace. 

“After three laps I started to feel more comfortable on the bike and push a bit more the pace. I felt that my pace was maybe a couple of tenths faster than the rest so I tried to get to the lead.”

Rea heaps praise on ‘untouchable’ Bautista after dominant WorldSBK win

Unlike 2019, cracks in the Ducati rider’s armour have been far and few between, with the Spaniard instead showing more consistency than anyone.

In total control of the race while Rea was busy trying to fend off Axel Bassani in their intense race-long battle for second, Bautista eventually won by five seconds.

Rea did manage to show impressive late race pace, however, the Kawasaki rider was unable to deliver the same lap times as Bautista when the series leader put the hammer down after five laps. 

"Yeah I’m really happy with that one because my team worked tirelessly throughout the weekend to try and piece together the jigsaw of tyres, chassis balance and they gave me a really good bike," said a happy Rea. 

"When Alvaro got to the front I was quite happy to sit behind Bassani, but when Alvaro came past, woah! - he had such a pace that he was just going away. 

"Unfortunately I just got stuck behind Bassani and couldn’t pass. He was just too strong in a few key areas of the track. 

"But I could just bide my time and plot [an overtake]. I could do my rhythm [after that] but Alvaro was gone. He was untouchable today."