A number of riders took turns leading the 21-lap contest at Circuito San Juan Villicum, before Bautista hit the front and pulled away from the rest of the field.
At the start it was Jonathan Rea who grabbed the top spot with a rapid launch from third on the grid, with Michael Ruben RInaldi also making a quick getaway from fourth to demote polesitter Toprak Razgatlioglu to third.
Rinaldi was the next rider to move into the lead, passing Rea at the beginning of the second lap, with the Kawasaki star subsequently dropping to fifth after running wide at both Turn 7 and 8 on either end of the back-straight.
Alex Lowes also enjoyed a brief moment of glory after passing Rinaldi at the Turn 7 left-hander, before the factory Ducati rider quickly bounced back to reinstate the status quo.
Ultimately, Rinaldi’s reign at the front would also prove to be short-lived, with Bautista and Razgatlioglu passing him in quick succession on lap 5.
Razgatlioglu had won a close duel with Bautista earlier on Sunday afternoon in the Superpole race, but Bautista had the measure of his chief championship rival this time.
After running in close proximity for several laps, the Spaniard was able to pull a one-second buffer out front, before extending his advantage further en route to a convincing 3.3s victory.
It was Bautista’s 14th visit to the top step of the podium and the result puts him 82 clear of second-placed Razgatlioglu in the standings, with just the two flyaway weekends in Indonesia and Australia still to run.
Rea recovered from his lap two errors that dropped him to sixth to grab the final spot on the podium in third, overtaking Kawasaki teammate Lowes into Turn 8 with just four laps to run.
After his early heroics, Rinaldi had to settle for fifth on the factory Ducati, more than 15 seconds off his race-winning teammate Bautista, although he still secured some important points for the Italian marque in its battle against Yamaha in the manufacturers’ standings.
Behind, Xavi Vierge got the jump on Iker Lecuona at the start and managed to fend off a mid-race attack from his teammate to finish as the top Honda rider in sixth.
Yamaha’s Andrea Locatelli could only rise up to eighth after a disappointing qualifying session, leading factory BMW duo Scott Redding and Michael Ruben Rinaldi.
Incredibly, not a single rider from a satellite team finished inside the top 10, with Eugene Laverty the best among that contingent in 11th on the Bonovo BMW.
His…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Motorsport.com – MOTORBIKES – Stories…