MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

Alvaro Bautista has taken a dominant win in the first race for the WorldSBK class at Misano. With a special yellow livery on his Aruba.it Ducati Panigale, celebrating Ducati's success in the 1990s, the reigning world champion led from lights to flag. He got a strong drive off the line, entered Turn 1 in the lead, and had a gap of nearly half a second by the end of the first lap. From then, he set a searing pace which no one else could follow.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi took second spot after winning the battle with Toprak Razgatlioglu into Turn 1. Though Razgatlioglu tried to cling on to the tail of Rinaldi, the Pata Yamaha rider never really threatened the Italian, Rinaldi making it an Aruba.it Ducati 1-2. 

Razgatlioglu finished a comfortable third, after fending off challenges in the early part of the race from the Ducatis if Danilo Petrucci and Axel Bassani. Petrucci crashed out of fourth on lap 15, handing the position to the Motocorsa Ducati rider.

While the gaps at the front where large, the battle for fifth was thrilling, Dominique Aegerter doing everything he could to try to squeeze past Jonathan Rea. The GYTR GRT Yamaha rider managed it only briefly at Turn 14 on the penultimate lap, but Rea's experience helped him push Aegerter back into sixth, the Kawasaki rider ending the race in fifth.

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