Having ended a two-year victory drought in only his second race back at Ducati earlier on Sunday, Bautista replicated the same result in the final race of the season opener after emerging on top in an early duel with Rea.
The Spanish rider didn’t make the best of the starts from pole position, allowing Rea through into the lead at Turn 1 and Toprak Razgatlioglu up to second place at Turn 4.
However, having quickly repassed the Yamaha, Bautista retook the initiative at Turn 16 with a brave dive up the inside of Rea into the long left-hander.
Rea and Bautista continued to fight for position for the first part of the race, with the lead changing hands multiple times over the course of each lap.
Their battle was effectively decided on lap 5 when, having slipped again behind Bautista, Rea ran wide over Turn 1 while defending from Michael Ruben Rinaldi and dropped to fourth behind Razgatlioglu’s Yamaha.
Rea did repass Razgatloglu quickly but it wasn’t until lap 11 that he could…
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