Indonesian World Superbike Results: Bautista wins Race 2, Rea crashes

Alvaro Bautista fights back from his first DNF of the 2023 World Superbike season with victory in Race 2 at Mandalika.

After taking his first win of the season in the Superpole Race, Toprak Razgatlioglu made a great start to lead the way following lap one. 

Starting down in tenth, Bautista made small progress at the start as he moved up two positions before making a mistake that allowed Scott Redding through for eighth.

• Indonesian World Superbike Results: Toprak wins Superpole Race, Bautista crashes 
• Indonesian World Superbike Race (1) Results: Alvaro Bautista a class apart as Jonathan Rea suffers shock result

The battle for the lead changed dramatically on lap two as Axel Bassani pushed his way through on Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea, before doing the same to Andrea Locatelli one corner later.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi made it a Ducati 1-2 after overtaking both factory Kawasaki riders in three corners. 

Back ahead of Redding, Bautista latched back onto the rear of Locatelli, who went from first to seventh in the space of one lap. 

After making a mistake that allowed teammate Alex Lowes through for P3 on lap four, Rea was then dropped to fifth by Razgatlioglu at turn ten. 

Chaos ensued with 15 laps to go as Lowes was first to make an error at turn one which resulted in him dropping from third to 12th. 

Michael Van Der Mark then suffered a massive crash at turn 11 as he highsided in front of Philipp Oettl, with the Ducati rider unable to avoid the BMW as he also went down.

Scott Redding made it back-to-back crashes for the factory BMW team after going down at the penultimate corner when he made an ambitious move on Locatelli. Squeezed at the apex, Redding then lost the front which pushed Locatelli wide as a result. 

Leading by over 2.5 seconds, Rinaldi’s dream Race 2 came to an end when a red flag was deployed due to the crash involving Van Der Mark and Oettl. 

When Race 2 restarted, a new distance of 14 laps was set with Rinaldi starting from pole ahead of Razgatlioglu and Xavi Vierge. 

As the lights went out, Rinaldi led into turn one as Bautista made his way up to third ahead of Vierge.

As Rinaldi pulled the pin on lap three, Bautista began to line-up a move for second which eventually came but not before losing 1.4 seconds to his teammate.

Now in clear air, Bautista started chipping away at Rinaldi’s lead as he reduced the gap to just over a second with nine laps remaining. 

What’s been a very difficult start to 2023 continued for Rea, as the six-time world champion crashed out at turn seven, moments after overtaking Bassani for P5.

At the front, Rinaldi’s lead was quickly disappearing as Bautista was just over half a second down. 

Rinaldi’s stern defence was finally broken by Bautista at turn ten of the penultimate lap.

What should have been a Ducati 1-2 was then thrown away by Rinaldi as a mistake at turn ten on the final lap relegated him to fourth.