WSB Round-up: Alvaro Bautista celebrates historic treble at Phillip Island

Reigning champion Alvaro Bautista got his 2023 World Superbike Championship campaign off to the best possible start with an historic hat-trick at Phillip Island.

The Aruba.it Racing Ducati rider remained calm in Saturday’s wet race before dominating Sunday’s sprint and feature race. Sunday’s victories moved Bautista onto 35 WSB wins, taking him above 2013 World Champion Tom Sykes.

For detailed analysis, insight, comments and opinion from Phillip Island, read this Wednesday’s MCN (March 1)

Bautista becomes the first rider to take a second hat-trick at one circuit after also completing the triple at Phillip Island in 2019. The former MotoGP racer also becomes the most successful rider at the circuit with eighth victories, and the first rider to clinch five WorldSBK hat-tricks.

Bautista’s triple puts the Spaniard on 62 points, and he already holds a 28-point lead in the championship standings.

“It’s a dream weekend,” Bautista said. “Undoubtedly the best way to start the season also because we have shown that we were very fast in all conditions, both in the rain and with different temperatures. I am very happy, and I want to thank my team, who put me in a position to be able to get these results.”

Trouble for Rea and Toprak

Phillip Island wasn’t quite as enjoyable for Bautista’s frontrunning rivals, Jonathan Rea and Toprak Razgatlioglu.

Both started the weekend positively with Rea and Toprak finishing second and third respectively in the tricky conditions of race one.

Sunday’s sprint race saw Razgatlioglu secure another podium in third, but Rea came home in seventh after being run out wide during a battle with Dominique Aegerter on the opening lap of the race.

The final race of the weekend dealt the biggest blows to both competitors in their hunt to regain the WorldSBK crown.

Razgatlioglu and Alex Lowes were battling for fourth position when the pair crashed out of the race. Toprak looked to make a move around the outside of the Brit at turn four on lap 17, but Lowes lost the front of his Kawasaki ZX-10RR on the run into Miller Corner and took Toprak out of the race.

This was very bad luck,” Toprak said afterwards. “This is just the first round of the season, there are many races to go. I hope we are coming back again. It was a small crash, I’m okay. He crashed alone. We used different lines. For me, it was bad luck because I was on the outside and we crashed together.”

His result in the sprint race meant that Rea started race two from seventh on the grid. He was involved in the stunning battle for fourth alongside Razgatlioglu, Lowes, Axel Bassani, Philipp Oettl and Iker Lecuona, with positions swapped on multiple occasions.

However, in the latter stages of the race Rea began to struggle for grip and fell behind that group. In fact, the six-time champion was caught by Aegerter on the final lap and dropped to eighth position.

“All of a sudden, bang, I had no grip whatsoever,” Rea said. “I was really conserving my tyre, using short lines and picking the bike up, not smashing into the traction control. We just need to put our heads together and understand why because a few months ago, I was able to compete and be much faster in the race for a longer distance.

“It’s a bit of a head scratcher to be honest. I don’t think this result reflects the true reality of where we are; I felt like in the off-season, we’ve really improved the bike, but it is true, a bad now in WorldSBK and you have to fight for these positions. We have to make sure we don’t suffer too many bad days from now on.”

Rea is 31 points behind Bautista, with Razgatlioglu a further eight points adrift.

Locatelli and Rinaldi step up

Whilst their illustrious teammates struggled, Andrea Locatelli and Michael Ruben Rinaldi stepped up and filled their boots at the front of the grid.

Locatelli enjoyed his best-ever start to a WorldSBK season with a fourth in race one being followed by a fifth in the Superpole Race and third in Race Two. As a result, the Pata Yamaha Prometeon rider sits second overall, 28 points behind Bautista.

Meanwhile, buoyed by a confidence-boosting pre-season, Rinaldi secured a pair of seconds on Sunday to ensure that Ducati celebrated a one-two finish in both races. The only downside to the Italian’s weekend was that he finished 14^th in the wet conditions on Saturday afternoon.

Best of the rest

Elsewhere, Bassani and Oettl impressed on their privateer Ducati V4Rs. Both men were involved in the multi-rider fight for fourth in the final race, and crossed the line in fourth and fifth respectively.

Iker Lecuona led the charge for Honda with sixth position in Race One and Race Two, and eighth in the Superpole Race.

Aegerter enjoyed a best result of seventh on his WorldSBK debut, but was involved in a collision with GYTR GRT Yamaha teammate Remy Gardner whilst battling for a spot on the podium in the Superpole Race. Gardner’s best result at his home round was 10^th in Race Two.

Danilo Petrucci ended his maiden weekend with a pair of top 10 finishes and an 11^th. BMW’s problems continued with Scott Redding’s ninth place in Race One being the best of the bunch for the German manufacturer.  

For detailed analysis, insight, comments and opinion from Phillip Island, read this Wednesday’s MCN (March 1)