Alvaro Bautista wins his sixth race of the season after battling with Toprak and Rea

Toprak Razgatlioglu started from pole position after taking his first win of the season in the Superpole race, Alvaro Bautista was in second place and Jonathan Rea rounded out the front-row with all of them on different rear tyres.

The lights went out and it was Toprak who took the holeshot with Bautista in second and Xavi Vierge in third, but Rea immediately passed him at turn three with Iker Lecuona making it two Honda’s in the top five.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi was on a charge, passing Andrea Locatelli and Lecuona in aggressive fashion on the opening lap, wanting to redeem himself after a poor superpole race.

Bautista went up the inside of Toprak at turn eight, but ran wide then the Spaniard made his way through at Curvone using the horsepower of the Ducati. Toprak sent it into turn 14 and sat Bautista up allowing Rea to move into second.

Meanwhile Rinaldi was on a charge and made his way through on Rea at turn eight to move into third place.

On lap four Bautista made the same move on Toprak, he went defensive into turn 14, but the Turkish rider still found a way through on the Ducati to hold on to the lead.

Axel Bassani once again was having a very impressive ride in fifth place and holding on to the back of the front four.

On lap seven, Bautista made a third pas at Curvone and was able to fend off Toprak at turn 14 and the championship leader looked to try and pull away from the reigning champion; the Aruba Ducati rider immediately setting the fastest lap of the race.

At the halfway point of the race it was a duel between Toprak and Bautista, Rinaldi had lost touch with the front two but had a comfortable gap over Rea who looked frustrated with the situation.

On lap 12 Xavi Vierge who had just passed Bassani for fifth place crashed out of the race at Curvone, he looked winded with his CBR 1000-RR in pieces and was taken to the medical center.

Toprak was pushing well over the limit on his PATA Yamaha R1 and sliding the rear through Curvone and going over the green and receiving a track limits warning, the Kawasaki’s of Rea and Alex Lowes also had track limits warnings.

Bautista had pulled over a five second gap over Toprak with two laps to go, Lowes received a long lap penalty due to exceeding track limits, which would demoted him to eighth place after fighting so hard to get inside the top six.

Alvaro Bautista crossed the line to take his sixth victory of the season and extended his championship lead over Jonathan Rea to 36 points. Toprak finished in second place after riding out of his skin for the majority of the race and Michael Ruben Rinaldi took his second third place of the weekend.

Featured Image: WorldSBK.Com