Bautista clears off in sprint race

Full World Superbike sprint race results at Aragon

Alvaro Bautista has made it eight out of eight at the start World Superbike championship with a comfortable victory in the sprint race at Aragon.

The Aruba.it Racing Ducati rider cleared off at the front from pole position to pull out a useful lead over the opening half of the sprint race before maintaining the gap to seal a eighth straight win. It sets up a shot at history for the Spaniard who can match Neil Hodgson’s nine wins in a row at the start of the 2003 World Superbike championship in the second full race later today.

Behind Bautista an almighty three-way battle for second place developed between Jonathan Rea, Alex Lowes and Chaz Davies. Rea, who suffered heavy contact with Michael Ruben Rinaldi into the first turn, carved his way from 10^th on the grid to follow Lowes in third place by Lap 3.

Rea and Lowes traded overtakes during the sprint race but the reigning World Superbike champion retained second spot by just 0.115s at the finish line.

Davies just missed out on the podium in fourth place, crossing the line 0.146s behind Lowes, while further back a similar fight for fifth place was won by BMW’s Tom Sykes ahead of Team Go Eleven Ducati’s Eugene Laverty.

Haslam kept in touch with Sykes and Laverty by the closing laps for seventh place with Jordi Torres impressing on the Pedercini Kawasaki to take eighth.

Sandro Cortese faded as the race wore on but held on for ninth place on the GRT Yamaha just in front of Puccetti Kawasaki’s Toprak Razgatlioglu.

Marco Melandri was caught up in the first corner incident which restrained his charge to 11^th place ahead of leading Honda rider Leon Camier.

Ryuichi Kiyonari and Alessandro Delbianco kept clear of Michael van der Mark who was the unlucky rider to be taken down by the falling Rinaldi directly ahead of him at the first corner.