Bautista ends Ducati's Donington nightmare with victory

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

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

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Gerloff managed to re-join the action while 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 Bautista then made a mistake of his own which allowed 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 close before performing a late-braking move at the Melbourne Loop. 

While 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 round started with a move on Rea at the same Melbourne Loop.

However, Rea regained the 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 the 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, Bautista 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 first 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 difficult to stick with the Ducati rider.

Despite keeping the gap at 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 two seconds, Petrucci made a great move on Lowes to claim P4. 

Eyeing his first WorldSBK podium, Petrucci 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 final two laps.

Bautista's win is Ducati's first at Donington Park since Carlos Checa in 2011.