WorldSBK Barcelona Results, Race 2 - Concentration is the key

WorldSBK heads to Barcelona this weekend for its fourth round of 2023. Alvaro Bautista holds a 56-point lead in the riders’ standings coming into the weekend. Check back on this page throughout the weekend for WorldSBK Barcelona results.

Overview

Race 2 - Bautista dominant again as Razgatlioglu out-manages Rinaldi

Superpole Race  - Bautista wins again as rain causes chaos behind

Race 1 - Bautista dominates as Bassani, Rinaldi collide

Superpole - Back-to-back poles for dominant Bautista

FP2 - Bautista heads Ducati 1-2 to end day one in Barcelona

FP1 - Rinaldi begins the weekend on top as Rea, Razgatlioglu threaten Ducati

Race 2

More rain arrived just before the start of WorldSBK Race 2 in Barcelona, but the track was dry enough at the start to mean that slicks were the only possible choice. 

Alvaro Bautista made a terrible launch, but of course he made the holeshote regardless. He was ahead of Toprak Razgatlioglu, while Michael Ruben Rinaldi had made it up to third from seventh.

Razgatlioglu made a move to the front at turn five, despite having been passed by Rinaldi in turn four. The Turkish rider was unable to get away enough before they got back to the straight to prevent the Ducati riders behind from passing him. In fact, even Alex Lowes on the Kawasaki drafted past the Yamaha, and sealed third place at turn five, while Bautista led from Rinaldi.

By lap seven, the Ducati riders were escaping. Razgatlioglu therefore picked up the intensity and passed Lowes for third at turn one. His pace was not good enough, though, and Lowes stayed in touch, along with Andrea Locatelli and Jonathan Rea in fifth and sixth, respectively.

The second half of the race could only be described as processional. Bautista won unchallenged once more, and Rinaldi seemed to be unchallenged, too. In the final two laps, however, he completely ran out of rear tyre, and lost second place on the final corner to Razgatlioglu. Exactly how Rinaldi managed to cook his tyre when he was not chasing his teammate and when there was no pressure from behind is somewhat mysterious.

Alex Lowes finished in fourth place, beating his decorated Kawasaki teammate, Rea, who finished fifth, ahead of Xavi Vierge (6th), Andrea Locatelli (7th), Dominique Aegerter (8th), Iker Lecuona (9th), and Garrett Gerloff (10th).

Full WorldSBK results from Race 2 in Barcelona are below.

2023 WorldSBK Championship | Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain | Race 2 ResultS

Superpole Race

Cloudy weather represented the aftermath of some rain on Sunday morning, but although it was fully dry for the start of the WorldSBK Superpole Race, it ended in light rain. Alvaro Bautista won once again, his 10th win of the season.

Bautista made the holeshot, ahead of Michael Ruben Rinaldi and Jonathan Rea, while Toprak Razgatlioglu fought with Alex Lowes for fourth.

Razgatlioglu broke clear of Lowes by the beginning of lap two, with the #22 left to fight with Dominique Aegerter, instead.

Razgatlioglu dealt with Rea on lap two, and turned his attention to second-placed Rinaldi, who he passed on lap four. 

The Turkish rider could not do anything about the pace of Bautista, who began to stretch his lead in the second half of the race, so the battle was for second place between Yamaha-mounted Razgatlioglu, Ducati-mounted Rinaldi, and Kawasaki-mounted Rea.

Light rain began to fall in the final three laps. It did not seem to matter to Bautista, who still won by over two seconds, but Jonathan Rea crashed in turn one on the final lap.

Razgatlioglu took second place in what turned out to be a huge group battle in the end. He was slightly detached at the front, but only by a couple of tenths, while Andrea Locatelli came out on top in the fight for third, ahead of Iker Lecuona and Alex Lowes.

Dominique Aegerter was sixth, Garrett Gerloff seventh, Michael Ruben Rinaldi eighth, and Xavi Vierge took the final point in ninth. Axel Bassani rounded out the top 10. 

Full WorldSBK results from the Superpole Race in Barcelona are below.

2023 WorldSBK Championship | Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain | SP Race Results

Race 1

Alvaro Bautista started from pole position for the first time this year in a WorldSBK Race 1, and proceeded to dominate the race, taking his ninth win of the season.

Before the start of the race, Scott Redding was penalised three grid positions for riding slowly on the racing line. It was the same penalty as Alvaro Bautista and Axel Bassani received in Assen two weeks ago, and therefore only applies to Race 1, and not to the Superpole Race or Race 2. It meant Redding started from 16th instead of 13th, and meant Loris Baz moved up from row six to row five.

When the race began, there was a great launch from Jonathan Rea, but even so he was beaten to turn one by both factory Ducatis - Bautista led from Michael Ruben Rinaldi.

The two factory Yamahas made decent starts, too. Andrea Locatelli ended the first lap in fourth place, but he was demoted to fifth by his teammate, Toprak Razgatlioglu, into turn one at the beginning of lap two.

At the beginning of lap four, the red flag was brought out for a crash for Eric Granado. The timing screen said the crash was at turn 11, which is effectively the second part of the recently-revised turn 10, although Granado ended up in the gravel at turn 12. There is no official update on Granado’s condition at the time of writing. He was removed from the track and taken to the circuit medical centre by ambulance, and was seen trying to take his own gloves off.

The race restarted with grid positions taken from the third sector point on lap three of the original start. That meant that Bautista started from pole alongside Rinaldi and Rea, with Razgatlioglu, Bassani, and Locatelli on row two. The race distance was shortened to 17 laps.

It was a better launch for Bautista this time, but although Rea made a better launch than Rinaldi he came out of turn two in fifth place, behind Axel Bassani and Locatelli, too. 

Rea was soon up to fourth, past Locatelli, just as the Ducati riders, Bassani and Rinaldi, engaged. Bassani passed Rinaldi into turn one, Rinaldi pushed Bassani out of the way in turn three, and then Rinaldi fell when the two touched again in turn 10.

As a result of the fight, Bautista’s lead was approaching two seconds by the end of lap three, while Bassani was coming under pressure from Rea and Razgatlioglu.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Bassani was given a long lap penalty for his move on Rinaldi. In some ways, you could argue that Rinaldi’s move was deserving of a similar penalty. However, Rinaldi’s was much better judged, hence Bassani was able to get out of the way, whereas Rinaldi had no such ability, since Bassani’s front wheel never appeared in the vision of the #21.

The penalty for Rinaldi dropped him behind Rea and Razgatlioglu, and even behind Locatelli. That ended Bassani’s podium hopes, leaving Rea and Razgatlioglu to fight it out for second and third place. 

That battle went the way of Razgatlioglu, in the end, leaving it until the last lap to pass Rea for second. The battle lasted the duration of the final tour, though, and was a reminder of what WorldSBK can offer at its brutal best. Razgatlioglu hasd waited until the final lap to attack Rea for the very reason that his rival did not know any of his weak points. Razgatlioglu also knew all of Rea's strong and weak areas, and was able to use his usual aggressive braking technique to remove the options for Rea to pass into corners such as turns four, five, and 10. It was a great display of racecraft from the 2021 WorldSBK Champion, and the promise of one or two repeats of his battle with Rea tomorrow is something to be excited about.

Bassani ran out of rear tyre in the final five laps, which saw him drop back from Locatelli, who finished fourth, and be passed by Dominique Aegerter (5th) and Iker Lecuona (6th, top Honda), ending his own race in seventh.

Behind Bassani were Xavi Vierge (8th), Garrett Gerloff (9th, top BMW) and Danilo Petrucci (10th), who got the better of Remy Gardner in the closing stages of the race. 

Full WorldSBK results from Race 1 in Barcelona are below.

2023 WorldSBK Championship | Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain | Race 1 Results

Superpole

Superpole for the WorldSBK riders took place in the hot, dry conditions that were now characterising the weekend, as expected in Barcelona. Pole position was claimed by Alvaro Bautista, his second of the season and in succession.

Alvaro Bautista fired his gun with significant proficiency from the beginning of Superpole. He set an all-time lap record on his first lap of the session, and after the first run, the reigning champion was half-a-second clear of the second-placed rider, Dominique Aegerter.

When the SCQ tyres went in, Jonathan Rea and Scott Redding were both setting a strong pace, but had their laps effectively cancelled before they were completed due to a red flag caused by Rea’s Kawasaki teammate, Alex Lowes, who crashed at the final corner on his out-lap, his bike puncturing the air fence.

When the session resumed, there were only two minutes left on the clock, meaning all the laps came in a flurry. Lowes himself only dropped one spot, from fifth to sixth, and Bautista maintained pole position.

Dominique Aegerter was able to take second place on the GRT Yamaha. His Yamaha colleagues comparatively struggled, especially those from the factory, Crescent-run Pata Yamaha Prometeon team. Remy Gardner, Aegerter’s GRT teammate, was seventh, but both Toprak Razgatlioglu and Andrea Locatelli struggled, qualifying eighth and 10th, respectively. 

Between Aegerter and Gardner were Jonathan Rea, who salvaged third place; Michael Ruben Rinaldi; last year’s Barcelona pole-sitter Iker Lecuona on the lead Honda; and the aforementioned Lowes, who was unhurt after his crash and walked away immediately.

Joining Gardner and Razgatlioglu on the third row for the first full-length race and the Superpole Race is Garrett Gerloff, the fastest BMW rider, while Locatelli is joined by Danilo Petrucci and Xavi Vierge on row four.

Full WorldSBK Barcelona results from Superpole in Catalunya are below.

2023 WorldSBK Championship | Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain | Superpole Results

FP2

For WorldSBK, FP2 in Barcelona saw a continuation of the hot conditions of the morning’s FP1 session. Compared to the morning, though, the times looked slightly different at the top, as Alvaro Bautista displaced Michael Ruben Rinaldi to go fastest.

It was not until the final five minutes that the time attacks began. In comparison to MotoGP, there is a comparative lack of need to push for a single fast lap in WorldSBK. In the hot conditions of Barcelona, this was highlighted in the reality of FP2, during which 40 minutes were dedicated to figuring out race tyres and how to manage them.

The best time attack came from the reigning champion, the newly re-signed Alvaro Bautista, on his #1 Ducati Panigale V4 R. He was 0.350 seconds ahead of his factory Ducati teammate, Michael Ruben Rinaldi, while Jonathan Rea was third on the first Kawasaki. Garrett Gerloff impressed in fourth place on the top BMW, while Dominique Aegerter was fifth-fastest overall and the fastest Yamaha ahead of Toprak Razgatlioglu (6th), Axel Bassani (7th), Scott Redding (8th), Andrea Locatelli (9th), and Danilo Petrucci (10th) who rounded out the top 10.

Full WorldSBK Barcelona results from FP2 in Catalunya are below.

2023 WorldSBK Championship | Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain | FP2 Results

FP1

FP1 for WorldSBK in Barcelona began in the kind of conditions more commonly found by MotoGP when it visits the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Since 2020, when the circuit first appeared on the WorldSBK calendar, the production series has visited Catalunya in September, while MotoGP has had its Catalan Grand Prix in July. This year, they are somewhat flipped, with WorldSBK there now, in the beginning of May, and MotoGP heading there in September. That could mean cooler temperatures for the GP riders, but right now for the WorldSBK runners it is appearing to mean a particularly hot weekend with particularly greasy track conditions. 

Throughout FP1, riders were visibly riding with a relative amount of hesitation and caution, trying to make rear tyres last and to not over-stress a front tyre which is not being supported by the track very much at all. 

The fastest time in the session was set very early on, in the opening minutes, by Michael Ruben Rinaldi. After a disappointing weekend for the Italian in Assen, it was a great way for him to begin what he will hope to be a rebound weekend by topping the opening session. 

He was in front of Jonathan Rea and Toprak Razgatlioglu, the latter being one of the only riders to set his best time in the final stages of the session - right at the end, in fact, and with his final lap of the morning.

Alvaro Bautista was fourth-fastest, ahead of Iker Lecuona, Andrea Locatelli, Dominique  Aegerter, Xavi Vierge, Alex Lowes and Scott Redding, who completed the top 10.

Full WorldSBK Barcelona results from FP1 in Barcelona are below.

2023 WorldSBK Championship | Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain | FP1 Results

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