French World Superbike Superpole Race Results: Bulega wins as Bautista crashes out

Nicolo Bulega won his second WorldSBK race in the Superpole Race at Magny-Cours, narrowly beating Alex Lowes.

Bulega led from the start in tricky conditions. Damp patches remained from rain on Saturday and into Sunday morning, but the only logical tyre choice was slicks.

The Italian and Lowes were eventually able to begin pulling away from the rest of the field at around half-distance, and would go on to decide victory between them.

Lowes had two real goes at making his way into the lead, but was squared off by Bulega on both occasions, the first at turn five, the second at turn 13.

Bulega eventually sealed victory by 0.115 seconds, for his second win of the year after his debut win in Race 1 at Phillip Island.

Lowes took second place, ahead of Danilo Petrucci, who finished third but who at time of writing is under investigation for contact with Andrea Locatelli that left the Yamaha rider out of the race.

Fourth place went to Scott Redding, ahead of Xavi Vierge, Garrett Gerloff, Iker Lecuona, and Michael van der Mark; all of whom were in a race-long fight for the third position eventually taken by Petrucci. Van der Mark held third for most of the race, but fell back towards the end.

Remy Gardner and Axel Bassani rounded out the top 10.

Jonathan Rea didn't take part in the race having been declared unfit after his Race 1 crash.

Alvaro Bautista was aiming to secure himself a good grid position for Race 2, having qualified only 17th, in the Superpole Race. He started 16th thanks to Rea's absence, but crashed on the first lap while battling with Tarran Mackenzie, and was taken to the medical centre.