In what has been a dream opening six races in Alvaro Bautista’s WorldSBK career, he took yet another race win to become the first rider since Neil Hodgson to win the opening six races of a WorldSBK season, back in 2003!
Bautista completed another lights to flag victory in dominant fashion on his way to more records!
With lights turning green, the final race of the Thai Round got underway, with Alvaro Bautista able to hold onto first position from start to finish. Jonathan Rea couldn’t take a challenge to Bautista but had to deal with Alex Lowes in the early stages. At the end of the first lap the leading trio had a slight gap over Leon Haslam, Michael van der Mark and Marco Melandri.
Soon, the big battle came from the scrap for fifth position, with van der Mark, Melandri, Sandro Cortese and Chaz Davies. Turn 3 was once again a prime overtaking area, with Melandri trying a move on van der Mark at Turn 3, with both running wide and allowing Chaz Davies to get a better drive down the straight and by Turn 4, the Welshman had got ahead of both Yamaha riders!
Melandri retook Davies at Turn 8 but the race winner from Buriram in 2018 fought back at Turn 12. Cortese and van der Mark made the exact same succession of moves; a thrilling spectacle in the early stages.
Luck wasn’t going the way of Tom Sykes, who had to retire his S1000RR on lap four. Melandri and Davies had a close call on the same lap, with the Italian forcefully moving aside his former teammate at Turn 9, allowing van der Mark to go through, whilst Chaz Davies had to recover right at the back of the group. It wasn’t long however before Davies himself would suffer the same fate as Sykes. The 29-time WorldSBK race winner retired on lap eight, concluding a wretched start to the season.
Whilst the front eight remained fairly static in an intriguing battle, further down the field, Toprak Razgatliolgu began to reel in Jordi Torres and got ahead of him in the final part of the race to win the battle of the Independent Kawasaki riders.
Bautista dominated to take the victory by more than ten seconds, ahead of Jonathan Rea and Alex Lowes. Michael van der Mark was able to hold off a late charge by Leon Haslam, whilst Marco Melandri finished in sixth position for a fifth race in a row. Van der Mark’s fourth place means he stretches his finishing run to 21.
Behind the leading six, Sandro Cortese became the first German since Max Neukirchner in 2008 to finish six consecutive races inside the top eight, with his seventh position. Eighth belonged to Michael Ruben Rinaldi, a great performance on his debut in Thailand. Razgatlioglu managed to hold off Jordi Torres as they completed the top ten.
With only three more finishers it was Markus Reiterberger in 11th, with Ryuichi Kiyonari in 12th on his debut in Thailand, whilst Alessandro Delbianco scored his first WorldSBK points with 13th. Eugene Laverty failed to start, whilst Argentine, Leandro Mercado retired after just one lap. Leon Camier and Thitipong Warokorn didn’t start due to their Tissot Superpole Race crash.