Rea wins to take World Superbike title with Bautista out

Full WorldSBK Race 2 results at Magny-Cours

Jonathan Rea has claimed victory and with it the 2019 World Superbike title in Race 2 at Magny-Cours as Alvaro Bautista is taken out of the race by Toprak Razgatlioglu’s fall.

With Rea needing to win and see Bautista fail to score points to seal the title today, fate played out kindly to the Kawasaki rider as on Lap 2 Toprak Razgatlioglu’s dive up the inside at Turn 13 saw the Turkish rider – fresh from his maiden World Superbike wins in Race 1 and the Sprint Race – low-side off directly in front of Bautista who was taken out by the Puccetti Kawasaki rider’s ZX-10RR.

Despite trying to remount and re-join the race, Bautista’s Aruba.it Racing Ducati was too badly damaged for him to continue which left him watching from the sidelines as Rea launched his title charge.

With two of his major rivals already out of the race, Rea was still made to work for victory against Pata Yamaha’s Michael van der Mark as the pair traded overtakes during the opening two-thirds of the race.

But Rea gradually pulled clear over the closing stages to take victory to seal the 2019 title and his fifth consecutive World Superbike championship.

As van der Mark had to settle for second place, Pata Yamaha team-mate Alex Lowes completed the podium comfortably ahead of Chaz Davies in fourth place for the factory Ducati squad.

Loris Baz capped a strong home round in fifth place for Ten Kate Racing Yamaha in front of a resurgent Marco Melandri in sixth place for GRT Yamaha.

Leon Haslam got the better of Tom Sykes for seventh place with Leon Camier completing his World Superbike comeback from injury with ninth place for Moriwaki Althea Honda.

Jordi Torres completed the top 10 for Pedercini Kawasaki ahead of fellow customer Kawasaki rider Leandro Mercado on the Orelac bike with Eugene Laverty on the Team Goeleven Ducati in 12^th place.

Sylvain Barrier (Brixx Ducati), Ryuichi Kiyonari (Moriwaki Althea Honda) and Markus Reiterberger (BMW) rounded out the points places.