Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati), who took the title from last week, this Sunday ended his great season in World Superbike with a victory in the last racewhich had to be cut on the Australian circuit of Phillip Island because of the red flag.
The Talavera pilot got his sixteenth win of the season and officially became the second Spaniard to win the Superbike world title, eleven years after Carlos Checa.
The final race of the 2022 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship ended four laps ahead of schedule due to a red flag at the end of lap 18, ending a close battle between the Spaniard and the Briton Jonathan Rhea (Kawasaki), who was back with victory this Saturday, in race 1 at Phillip Island, after almost six months.
Baptist started from the top of the starting formation thanks to his Superpole victory, but on the first lap Rea took the lead with two other Britons, Scott Redding (BMW Motorrad) and alex is coming down (Kawasaki).
on the fifth turn Baptist he overtook Rea and overtook him in seventh, while Turkish Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha) was in third position.
The fight for victory was reduced to a duel between Baptist and Rhea in the final third of the race, with the man from Toledo always in front, closely followed by the Briton, until, with four laps remaining, the red flag waved, putting an early end to the race.
The race was delayed -and then ended- due to a The collision of Irishman Eugene Laverty (Bonovo Action BMW) in turn 1, which also affected the Spaniard Xavi Fores (BARNI Spark), although no one was seriously injured.
Baptistwho set the fastest lap of the race with a time of 1:30.879, claimed victory by just 0.357 milliseconds, according to the latest valid records, and behind Lowes won the battle for third place from to Razgatlioglu.
The Spaniard, who became world champion in the 125cc class sixteen years ago, equaled his record of 16 wins in a season, as in 2019, and brought his total Superbike win tally to 32.
In the final standings of the championship, Bautista finished with 601 points, followed by Razgatlioglu (529), Rea (502) and the Italians Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Ducati, 293) and Andrea Locatelli (Yamaha, 274).
Source: La Verdad
I’m Rose Herman and I work as an author for Today Times Live. My expertise lies in writing about sports, a passion of mine that has been with me since childhood. As part of my job, I provide comprehensive coverage on everything from football to tennis to golf.
