Phillip Island World Superbike Race (1) Results: Bautista beats Rea to victory

Results from Race 1, round 1 of the 2023 World Superbike Championship at Phillip Island, Australia.
Alvaro Bautista, Ducati WorldSBK Phillip Island 2023
Alvaro Bautista, Ducati WorldSBK Phillip Island 2023

Alvaro Bautista gets his World Superbike title defence off to the perfect start after dominating Race 1 in wet conditions. 

After rain threatened to fall during Superpole, Race 1 eventually got underway in full wet conditions as Toprak Razgatlioglu started from pole. 

As the lights went out it was Bautista who made the best start as he immediately took the lead from the Yamaha rider.

Following Bautista through was Jonathan Rea before the Kawasaki rider made his move for the lead at turn one. 

Contact was made between Razgatlioglu and Alex Lowes, as the former was struggling to get up to pace.

Turn four was the scene of contact between both riders as Razgatlioglu closed the door on Lowes on corner exit. 

There was an early crash for Michael Van Der Mark as the BMW rider suffered a violent highside on lap two. 

Starting to find his feet in the tricky conditions, Razgatlioglu took back third spot from Lowes at the start of lap five after out-braking the British rider on the run to turn one. 

2023 World Superbike Phillip Island, Australia - Race (1) Results
PosRiderNatTeamTime
1Alvaro BautistaSPAAruba.It Racing Ducati22 Laps
2Jonathan ReaGBRKawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK+3.471s
3Toprak RazgatliogluTURPATA Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK+6.168s
4Andrea LocatelliITAPATA Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK+16.789s
5Axel BassaniITAMotocorsa Ducati+20.918s
6Iker LecuonaSPATeam HRC WorldSBK+27.015s
7Danilo PetrucciITABarni Spark Ducati Team+30.383s
8Xavi ViergeSPATeam HRC WorldSBK+30.625s
9Scott ReddingGBRBMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team+37.447s
10Garrett GerloffUSABonovo Action BMW+42.591s
11Philipp OettlGERGoEleven Ducati+44.142s
12Remy GardnerAUSGRT Yamaha+48.833s
13Dominique AegerterSWIGRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team+51.617s
14Michael RinaldiITAAruba.It Racing Ducati+55.010s
15Hafizh SyahrinMALMIE Honda Racing+1'15.223s
16Eric GranadoBRAMIE Honda Racing+1'17.459s
17Lorenzo BaldassarriITAGMT94 Yamaha+1'20.226s
18Loris BazFRABonovo Action BMW+1 Lap
19Tom SykesGBRPuccetti KawasakiDNF
20Alex LowesGBRKawasaki Racing Team WorldSBKDNF
21Oliver KonigCZEOrelac Racing KawasakiDNF
22Michael Van Der MarkNEDBMW Motorrad WorldSBK TeamDNF

After extending his lead to 1.6 seconds, Rea started to lose ground as Bautista set his fastest lap of the race on lap five.

Bautista took six tenths out of Rea in the opening few sectors of the lap before coming across the start-finish line 0.7s down. 

With Bautista in touching distance of the race lead, Razgatlioglu was the rider to watch as he began closing in on the top two by over half a second. 

Bautista then caught Rea by surprise as he took the race lead with a move at ‘Stoner corner’ on lap ten. 

Now in the lead and pushing on the pace, Bautista suffered a big moment at turn eight as he nearly came unstuck in the same way as Van Der Mark. 

Following his close moment, Bautista managed to settle into his rhythm once again as he started extending his lead to nearly a second. 

With eight laps to go there was a change for P4 as Lowes crashed out of the race at turn two. 

After seeing Bautista suffer a moment a few laps ago, Rea then followed suit as the rear of his ZX-10RR came around on the exit of turn ten.

Rea managed to avoid a crash although he lost a few tenths which eliminated him from contention.

Remaining World Superbike weekend Schedule (UK time)

Sunday 

Warm-up - 23:30-23:45

Superpole Race - 02:00

Race 2 - 05:00

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