WorldSBK Jerez Results, Race 2 - The checkered flag is not the end

The 12th and final round of the 2023 Superbike World Championship is at Jerez in southern Spain this weekend. This page will be updated with WorldSBK Jerez results throughout the weekend.

Overview

Race 2 - All-time battle, but track limits cost Razgatlioglu

Superpole Race - Red flagged sprint 

Race 1 - Dominant Bautista wins the title with victory in Race 1

Superpole - Bautista on pole ahead of first title chance

Race 2

An all-time WorldSBK race, with another classic battle between Alvaro Bautista and Toprak Razgatlioglu, ultimately counted for very little, with a track limits penalty costing Razgatlioglu, and meaning Bautista completed the Jerez treble.

Once again, having won the Superpole Race, Alvaro Bautista started on pole position for Race 2, and he made the holeshot ahead of Jonathan Rea and Toprak Razgatlioglu.

Rea passed Bautista at turn five on the first lap, and he was escaping by the end of the first lap. Razgatlioglu passed Bautista at turn two on the second lap, and he too started to escape from the Spaniard, who was now under pressure from Dominique Aegerter.

By lap four, Bautista was beginning to break away from Aergerter, but by now he had almost 1.5 seconds of free track between himself and Razgatlioglu, who in turn was around one second behind the leader, Rea.

Bautista’s immediate target, Razgatlioglu, became the leader when Rea crashed at turn two on lap five. It took another three or four laps before Bautista began to really catch Razgatlioglu, who was already running out of critical drive grip.

The battling between the front two allowed Aegerter and Michael Ruben Rinaldi to catch them, and it was now a four-way fight for the win. A few laps later, the group had grown to be six-strong, now with Remy Gardner and Danilo Petrucci, thanks to the continued battling between the front two.

As in Portimao a few weeks ago, there were countless passes between Bautista and Razgatlioglu throughout the race, but it was the #54 Yamaha that led onto the last lap.

Razgatlioglu almost put together the perfect final lap, but despite crossing the finish line in the lead he was denied victory by a track limits violation on the last lap. The penalty for that was dropping one position, meaning Bautista completed the treble. Dominique Aegerter took his second WorldSBK podium in third place.

Remy Gardner made it a GRT Yamaha 3-4, ahead of Danilo Petrucci (5th), Michael Ruben Rinaldi (6th), Philipp Oettl (7th), Scott Redding (8th, top BMW), Andrea Locatelli (9th), and Garrett Gerloff (10th) who rounded out the top 10.

Full WorldSBK results from Race 2 in Jerez are below.

2023 WorldSBK Jerez Results | Race 2

Superpole Race

A red flag brought an end to what was becoming a chaotic WorldSBK Superpole Race in Jerez, and the restart was dominated by Alvaro Bautista.

Bautista made quite a bad start from pole position, and it was Dominique Aegerter who made the holeshot ahead of Alex Lowes. Bautista was third, and Toprak Razgatlioglu was fourth. The second lap was extremely intense, but a mechanical issue for Dominique Aegerter brought out the red flag.

The restarted race featured the full field, including Iker Lecuona who crashed on Aegerter’s oil, and took place over the reduced distance of eight laps.

This time, Bautista made another bad start. He lost out to Aegerter off the line, and then the two factory Kawasakis of Jonathan Rea and Alex Lowes pushed him back to fourth.

Aegerter’s time at the front was under pressure from Lowes who passed at turn nine, but the Swiss responded at turn 13.

Bautista passed Lowes at turn one on lap two, and then he took the lead on the run to turn six.

By the end of the second lap, Bautista was getting away, and Razgatlioglu knew he needed to get going if he wanted any chance of going with the newly crowned double World Champion. He passed Alex Lowes into turn one at the beginning of lap three, and Lowes then ran into the back of Razgatlioglu, and hit his head on Razgatlioglu’s rear tyre as he fell.

By lap five, an unexpected reality was emerging. Aegerter’s use of an SCQ tyre in the first stat left him with only an SCX tyre remaining for the second start. By lap five, Aegerter’s SCX was beginning to offer more grip than the SCQs of Rea and Razgatlioglu behind him, and even Bautista ahead.

Razgatlioglu was the rider suffering most with rear grip, and he was now in an all-out fight with Rea for third place.

Rea finally got his move done on Razgatlioglu with three laps to go, and was able to edge away from the #54 over the remaining distance.

Aegerter’s mid-race charge woke Bautista up, and he dropped his pace with three to go, winning with relative comfort once again. But the #77 was nonetheless able to secure his first WorldSBK podium, ahead of the top Kawasaki of Rea.

Razgatlioglu’s fourth place marked the first time he had finished a race in 2023 and not visited the podium. He finished ahead of his Pata Yamaha teammate, Andrea Locatelli, who took fifth place; while Remy Gardner (6th), Philipp Oettl (7th), Michael van der Mark (8th, top BMW), Danilo Petrucci (9th), and Xavi Vierge (10th, top Honda) rounded out the top 10.

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

2023 WorldSBK Jerez Results | Superpole Race

Race 1

A first match point was all Alvaro Bautista needed to clinch his second WorldSBK title, taking a dominant win in Race 1 at Jerez to seal the 2023 crown.

From pole position, Bautista made the holeshot, ahead of the two factory Kawasakis of Alex Lowes and then Jonathan Rea. Rea was able to pass Lowes on the first lap, and Toprak Razgatlioglu demoted the #22 to fourth place at turn one on lap two.

Razgatlioglu then passed Rea for second at turn nine on the second lap, leaving only Bautista ahead of him.

Bautista’s major advantage for most of the season has been rear grip, which leads to better rear tyre conservation. This started to pay by half-distance - Razgatlioglu had been able to stay with him until then, although not able to mount any kind of challenge for the lead, but with 10 laps to go the gap started to edge out.

It was a lonely race for both of the leaders at that point. Razgatlioglu saw Bautista escaping up the road towards his second world title, while he himself had over five seconds behind him to the battle for third, led by Jonathan Rea and featuring Alex Lowes and Andrea Locatelli, too.

Lowes dropped out of that battle towards the end, his rear grip dropping drastically in the final 10 laps. His Kawasaki teammate, Rea, was also demoted from the podium thanks to a second-half charge from Andrea Locatelli, which made it a Yamaha 2-3.

But the Yamahas were behind Bautista, who rode more or less the perfect race to finally clinch his third world title, and second in WorldSBK, with a winning margin of 1.195 seconds having coasted from the final corner to the line on the final lap.

Behind the podium-completing Yamahas of Razgatlioglu (2nd) and Locatelli (3rd), Jonathan Rea took fourth place (top Kawasaki), ahead of Danilo Petrucci (5th) and Philipp Oettl (6th). Alex Lowes dropped to seventh in the end, ahead of Michael Ruben Rinaldi who finished eighth after serving a long lap penalty for making contact with Axel Bassani, the #47 ending up in the gravel trap at turn nine as a result. The two re-signed HRC riders, Iker Lecuona (9th) and Xavi Vierge (10th), rounded out the top 10.

Full WorldSBK results from Race 1 in Jerez are below.

2023 WorldSBK Jerez Results | Race 1

Superpole

Alvaro Bautista has his first ‘match point’ for the 2023 Superbike World Championship later today, but Superpole came first. 

Jonathan Rea got off to a strong start in Superpole, despite missing some speed on Friday. He headed the times after the first run, and he improved again with the first lap of his second tyre.

But Alvaro Bautista made his second tyre count the most, setting a 1:38.635 to take pole position away from Rea and bring it into his box instead.

In comparison, Toprak Razgatlioglu - who is Bautista’s only remaining title rival - could only manage seventh.

Dominique Aegerter (2nd, top Yamaha) and Alex Lowes (3rd, top Kawasaki) completed the front row, while Jonathan Rea (4th) heads up row two from Remy Gardner (5th) and Philipp Oettl (6th) in what might be the German’s final WorldSBK Superpole session.

The aforementioned Razgatlioglu was seventh, ahead of Scott Redding (8th, top BMW) and Garrett Gerloff (9th) on row three. Andrea Locatelli on the second Pata Yamaha completed the top 10, ahead of Michael Ruben Rinaldi (11th) and Danilo Petrucci (12th).

Full WorldSBK results from Superpole in Jerez are below.

2023 WorldSBK Jerez Results | Superpole