WorldSBK Australia: Lowes Doubles Up in Australia After Outstanding Outside Pass

The 2024 World Superbike Championship kicks off this weekend with the WorldSBK Australian Round at Phillip Island. Alex Lowes completed his first WorldSBK 'double' in Race 2, courtesy of an excellent final lap overtake.

Overview

• Race 2 - Lowes Licks the Stamp for Superb Race Winning Overtake as Rea, Razgatlioglu DNF

• Superpole Race - Kawasaki's new era off to a strong start as Alex Lowes wins for the first time in four years 

• Race 1 - Bulega dominant to win on WorldSBK debut, Bautista crashes

• Superpole - Ballistic Bulega takes pole on debut as rookies go 1-2 at 2024 opener

• Free Practice 1 & 2 - Andrea Locatelli and Alex Lowes top FP1 & 2 in Phillip Island as established champions struggle

• 2023 WorldSBK Australian Round - A treble from Alvaro Bautista kicked off his title defence in perfect style

Race 2

The third and final race of the 2024 WorldSBK Australian Round, still inconveniently called ‘Race 2’, got underway with a significant delay of around one hour, and then with another delay for a mid-race red flag. By the end, Alex Lowes was able to climb to the top step for the second time in 2024.

There was significant chaos in the first start, not least the incident that caused the red flag. In addition, Toprak Razgatlioglu’s BMW expired, forcing him to retire, and he was unable to take the restart.

Alvaro Bautista, having led onto lap four on the first start, started from pole position on the second launch, and made the holeshot. 

The closest challenger to Bautista in the first part of the race was Michael Ruben Rinaldi, but he started to fade in the second half, and lost out to Alex Lowes, who closed the gap to Bautista within a couple of laps. Andrea Locatelli was able to close in, too, after clearing Rinaldi himself.

Bautista led onto the final lap from Lowes, but Locatelli, sensing an opportunity for his first WorldSBK win, tried to pass Lowes for second at turn four, but, having completed the pass, high-sided himself out of the race.

Lowes was able to regain second place without losing time to Bautista courtesy of Locatelli’s fall, and the Kawasaki rider was then able to execute a move which will be hard to surpass for ‘overtake of the season’, even with 10 rounds still to go, as he rode around the outside of the reigning champion at the famous Lukey Heights corner.

A good run through turns 10, 11, and 12 saw Lowes take his fourth WorldSBK race win, his third at Phillip Island, and his second of this weekend, after his Superpole Race triumph.

Bautista was resigned to second place, but nonetheless secured his first podium of 2024, ahead of Danilo Petrucci, who moved forwards throughout the race to finish third.

Andrea Iannone took fourth place, ahead of Nicolo Bulega, who had been as low as 13th early in the race, but recovered with some strong late race pace to fifth place.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi slipped to sixth place by the end, ahead of Sam Lowes (who was running third before the red flag) in seventh(meaning that the only bike in the top seven that wasn't a Ducati was the Kawasaki of the winner), Garrett Gerloff in eighth (and top BMW), Dominique Aegerter in ninth (and top Yamaha), and Michael van der Mark in 10th place.

The first start was red flagged for an incident between Jonathan Rea and Remy Gardner that saw the latter pick up a flat front tyre, and the former taken away on a stretcher but reported by WorldSBK Race Direction to be conscious. An image was posted by the Yamaha Racing X account showing Rea in the Pata Prometeon Yamaha pit box after the race.

Full results from WorldSBK Race 2 at Phillip Island are below.

2024 WorldSBK Australian Round Results | Race 2

Superpole Race

A chaotic beginning to the WorldSBK Superpole Race in Australia eventually resulted in a clear win for Alex Lowes, his first since World Superbikes visited Phillip Island back in 2020.

It was Andrea Iannone who made the holeshot, but he was out of contention by half-distance with an issue on his left handlebar.

That gave the lead to Alex Lowes, and battling behind allowed him to escape on lap six. Andrea Locatelli was the Brit’s closest challenger, but he was not able to mount a real challenge to the Kawasaki rider, who took his first win in four years, and a notable victory for Kawasaki - its first since the departure of Jonathan Rea.

Toprak Razgatlioglu finished third, taking his first podium for BMW despite suffering with rear edge grip in the second half of the race.

Alvaro Bautista finished fourth after saving what could have been a monstrous high-side at turn three, but unable to make the kind of rapid progress he was able to last year, indicating the introduction of the minimum rider weight rule has had an impact on his straight line performance. Nicolo Bulega, Bautista’s factory Ducati teammate, finished fifth after a crash in morning warm-up.

Remy Gardner looked on course for a podium in the mid-race, but slipped to sixth by the end, ahead of his GRT Yamaha teammate Dominique Aegerter in seventh. WorldSBK rookie Sam Lowes took eighth place, ahead of Michael Ruben Rinaldi in ninth, and Jonathan Rea who took his first points as a Yamaha rider in 10th.

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

2024 WorldSBK Australian Round Results | Superpole Race

Race 1

A dominant performance from Nicolo Bulega took the Italian to victory on his WorldSBK debut in Race 1 at Phillip Island.

The race began with a holeshot for Andrea Iannone, and although Alex Lowes led the first lap, it was Iannone who controlled the opening stages. 

During this period, Bulega took some time to bed into his first WorldSBK race, but towards the end of the first stint he managed to work his way to the front. In the pit stop sequence, Bulega was able to extend his advantage from around 0.5 seconds to over two seconds. From there, he was able to pull away further still, and his gap went out to four seconds.

Andrea Locatelli, who stopped two laps later than Bulega to change tyres, was able to reduce the gap, but not significantly enough to really put Bulega under any pressure.

In the end, it was an all-Italian podium, with Bulega the victor by over two seconds, ahead of Locatelli and Iannone, who finished third despite running off-track at turn four late on.

Toprak Razgatlioglu looked set for fourth place on his BMW debut, but he was given a 1.2-second time penalty for breaching the minimum pit stop time, which dropped him to fifth behind Alex Lowes on the leading Kawasaki.

Dominique Aegerter won out in a head-to-head fight for sixth place with Michael van der Mark, while Danilo Petrucci finished eighth. Petrucci had been in the podium fight in the first stint, but lost a lot of time in the pit stop sequence, ending over five seconds behind third-placed Iannone.

Garrett Gerloff was ninth, ahead of Honda’s Xavi Vierge, who ensured all five manufacturers were inside the top 10.

Alvaro Bautista’s  title defence did not get off to the best start. Although he was towards the front in the first laps, a move from Sam Lowes at turn nine pushed him back to the back end of the top 10, and then he crashed while trying to pass Axel Bassani at turn 10.

Jonathan Rea’s start to life at Yamaha was similarly difficult, finishing 17th.

There was a crash for Remy Gardner, who was taken out by Axel Bassani, who received a long lap penalty as a result.

Full results from WorldSBK Race 1 in Phillip Island are below.

2024 WorldSBK Australian Round Results | Race 1

Superpole

In a slight flashback to 2019, Superpole in Phillip Island was dominated by a rookie on a Ducati, as Nicolo Bulega stormed to a debut pole position aboard the Ducati Panigale V4 R.

Bulega's lap time was an all-time record for WorldSBK at Phillip Island, his 1:27.916 the first ever sub-1:28 lap time set during Superbike World Championship competition at the Australian venue.

Another Italian rookie, Andrea Iannone, was in second place, while 10-year WorldSBK veteran Alex Lowes held up Kawasaki honour in third place, having topped much of the session before a late charge from Bulega.

Dominique Aegerter was the strongest Yamaha rider in fourth place, but almost half-a-second slower than Bulega, while Toprak Razgatlioglu took fifth place on his BMW debut, 0.6 seconds off pole. Razgatlioglu's 2023 teammate, Andrea Locatelli, completed the second row for the factory Pata Prometeon Yamaha team.

Remy Gardner heads up row three in seventh place, ahead of another debutant, as Sam Lowes qualified eighth on his first WorldSBK appearance. Defending double-World Champion Alvaro Bautista completes row three, having inadvertently provided a slipstream to Bulega at the end of his new teammate's final and fastest lap of Superpole.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi was 10th-fastest on his Motocorsa Racing debut, while Jonathan Rea will start 11th in his first race for Yamaha, and Danilo Petrucci rounds out the fourth row in 12th place.

Iker Lecuona did not take part in qualifying after being declared unfit after Friday practice due to injuries sustained during the preseason test earlier this week.

Find all the latest WorldSBK results from the first Superpole session of 2024 at Phillip Island are below.

2024 WorldSBK Australian Round Results | Superpole

Free Practice 1 & 2

In typical Phillip Island fashion, the beginning of the 2024 World Superbike Championship got off to a less-than-straightforward start at the Australian Round, with rain disrupting the opening practice of the season.

Andrea Locatelli topped that FP1 session, while Alex Lowes put Kawasaki on top in the afternoon’s FP2 session.

It was a more complicated day for WorldSBK’s established Three Kings, with Toprak Razgatlioglu the fastest of them in ninth place, albeit only 0.365 seconds off the pace of Lowes. Alvaro Bautista, two-time reigning champion, was a further three places back in 12th, while Jonathan Rea was outside of the 1:29s in 16th place.

Nicolo Bulega was the top Ducati in second place, Michael van der Mark the best BMW in fourth, Andrea Locatelli the best Yamaha rider overall but with his best time coming in FP1, while Xavi Vierge was the fastest Honda down in 14th.

Full times from the two WorldSBK Friday practice sessions at Phillip Island are below.

2024 WorldSBK Australian Round Results | Free Practice

*Outside 105% of the fastest time in this session

2023 WorldSBK Australian Round

The 2023 Australian Round of WorldSBK saw Alvaro Bautista kick off his ultimately successful title defence with an undefeated weekend in Phillip Island, including a wet-weather Race 1 win after Jonathan Rea’s quickshifter failed. Rea and Toprak Razgatlioglu completed the podium in that first race, while Michael Ruben Rinaldi made it an Aruba.it Racing Ducati 1-2 in both the Superpole Race and Race 2. Razgatlioglu was third in the Superpole Race, and Andrea Locatelli took the final podium position in Race 2. 

Full results from all three WorldSBK races from the 2023 Australian Round are below.