Álvaro Bautista wins Race 1 of the SBK World Championship in Thailand

The World Superbike Championship got underway today at Chang International Circuit in Thailand, where we saw the current championship leader, Álvaro Bautista, once again become the main reference on track. There is no doubt that the Ducati rider, a World Championship newcomer, is the big protagonist of this 2019 season opener.

Although Bautista did not have an easy time in the first part of the race, where we witnessed an incredible duel with current World Champion Jonathan Rea, the Kawasaki rider stood up to the newcomer in this first race of the Thai round.

Bautista, who had also taken his first pole position, got off to a strong start in first place, but Rea attacked at full throttle into the second corner. The Kawasaki rider wanted to prevent him from escaping alone, and he made that clear when Bautista tried to overtake him at Turn 3 at Buriram. The maneuver ended in a fairing-to-fairing collision. Bautista was destabilized and nearly went down. Alex Lowes took advantage of the incident to move into second place.

The episode gave Rea a one-second advantage at the front of the race, but Bautista did not give up after the contact and came back on the attack, chasing down the Kawasaki rider. On the ninth lap, the Spaniard managed to reach him at the front and regained the lead. At that very moment, we also saw Chaz Davies crash after losing front-end control of his bike.

Lap by lap, Bauti opened a gap and secured a new victory, remaining unbeaten in this Championship. Rea followed, finishing eight seconds behind the rider from Talavera de la Reina, with Lowes third on the podium, fourteen seconds behind.

The top 10 was completed by Van der Mark in 4th, Haslam 5th, Melandri 6th, Cortese 7th, Rinaldi 8th, Sykes 9th and Razgatlioglu 10th. The rest of the Spanish riders finished with Torres in 11th.

Onward to tomorrow’s Superpole Race.