There was a huge twist in the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship title fight in Race 2 at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari di Imola as Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) crashed out of Race 2 from the lead on the opening lap. The reigning Champion got the holeshot into Turn 1 but crashed out of contention as soon as Turn 3 as his points lead was slashed by Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK) who took victory.

Bautista started from second and led into the braking zone at the Variante Tamburello as he went in search of a record-breaking 18^th win of the season. However, he was soon sliding off the track and into the gravel along with his Panigale V4 R as his race came to an end on Lap 1. With Razgatlioglu taking a hard-fought victory over Axel Bassani (Motocorsa Racing), Bautista’s Championship lead was cut by 25 points; it now stands at 70 over the 2021 Champion.

Explaining the crash, Bautista said: “We decided to make the race shorter… and I made it even shorter! I made a mistake. I had a good start and kept a good line, but I just touched the inside white line at Turn 3. Maybe in other laps I touched it without problems but perhaps, on the first laps, the tyres were not 100%, I made a mistake. Next time, I have to be more careful. A pity because we were quite competitive this weekend. We were quite strong in Race 1 and in the Superpole Race. We had a nice battle with Toprak. we were stronger than I expected this weekend. I have to be positive, look forward and try to learn from the mistake.”

Despite the costly crash, Bautista remained optimistic heading into the Czech Round next time out in two weeks, with the Spaniard still having more than a round’s worth of points in hand over his rivals. Bautista looked ahead to the upcoming round, vowing to learn from his mistake, as he looks to defend his title.

He added: “I think it’s important to not make mistakes. It’s what I’m working towards day by day. Today, I think, the combination of Imola being a difficult track for us before we got here, then I felt good on the bike, during the weekend I started to feel like I could fight for wins. If you put all this together, with small details on track, in these difficult conditions like today, it’s easy to crash or make a mistake. It’s good to know and it’s good to learn and not repeat this mistake. Let’s try to keep the mentality. We have to keep working this way and not make mistakes. It’s important to finish all the races. It doesn’t matter if it’s first, second or whatever. We have to finish all the races doing our best but without making mistakes.

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