What a weekend at the opening of the Superbike World Championship, with Alex Lowes ending the victory drought (twice), by winning race 2 on Sunday at Phillip Island, in a race that was marked by a red flag – after Jonathan Rea’s fall – and an overtaking maneuver that earned him first place… and the lead in the championship.
The race started with Andrea Locatelli (Pata Prometeon Yamaha) standing out from the beginning and achieving the holeshot, with Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) as his main opponent, along with Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) and Álvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati).
Razgatlioglu, however, had to end his race due to a technical problem with his BMW M 1000 RR and was thus forced to retire, while Jonathan Rea (Pata Prometeon Yamaha) appeared in fourth place, but the British rider had bad luck as he fell at the end of the third lap, at a time when Bautista would eventually reach the first position in the fourth lap, before the red flag was raised.
The grid for the restarted race was based on the classification before the red flag, with Bautista lining up on the first row alongside Locatelli and Andrea Iannone (Team GoEleven), who had a great start and advanced in the classification in the first three laps, including a double overtaking maneuver on Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Team Motocorsa Racing) and Rea. Bautista maintained the lead, but the highlight was Rinaldi, who rose from sixth place to second, thus challenging Bautista for the lead.
Rinaldi remained less than half a second behind his former teammate, although he was trying a final attack for first place, which he never achieved. Further back was Alex Lowes approaching Rinaldi. The #22 would eventually not only get close but effectively overtake him on the eighth lap, at a time when Locatelli was falling behind and not being as competitive.
The front trio began to pull away with Iannone falling behind due to a mechanical problem on his bike that had been affecting him since the sixth lap.
Shortly after, Locatelli, who had already overtaken Rinaldi, crashed while trying to overtake Alex Lowes – which put Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Team) in third place – and “freed” Bautista to fight more isolatedly with the Kawasaki rider.
The British rider would ultimately prevail over the world champion and win the race, with the victorious overtake happening on the last lap. Bautista tried to respond and return the maneuver but without success.
This was Lowes’ fourth victory in WSBK, with three of them happening at the legendary Australian circuit. It was also the British rider’s 36th podium, while he secured Kawasaki’s 180th.
