WSBK Catalunya: Alvaro Bautista seals treble and extends title advantage over Toprak Razgatliolgu and Jonathan Rea

The Aruba.it Ducati rider followed up his wide-margin victory in Saturday’s opening race with lights-to-flag wins the Superpole race and race two on Sunday.

Six-time champion Jonathan Rea repeated his runner-up finish in Saturday’s race with second place in the Superpole sprint race, but the Kawasaki rider could only manage fourth in race two and is now 67 points behind the Spaniard after round eight of 12.

Pata Yamaha’s Toprak Razgatlioglu remains in second place in the standings, 59 points down on Bautista and eight ahead of Ulsterman Rea.

"It’s the perfect weekend,” said Bautista.

"It was three years ago when I last won three races in a weekend, so I am so happy to do it here at Catalunya in Spain, especially in front of my family, my friends and my fans.

"Thank you very much to them for their support during the weekend, which has been fantastic.

“Also after Magny-Cours, to get three victories in a row is fantastic,” he added.

"I’m so happy because I enjoyed a lot the bike and also the fans.”

As he did on Saturday, Bautista took the lead off the line in the Superpole race and led all the way in the 10-lap sprint, sealing victory by 1.1s for his 10th win of the season at his home round of the series.

Rea overhauled his KRT team-mate Alex Lowes for second place on the final lap, while Razgatlioglu – who was 10th after a poor start – prevailed in a battle with Bautista’s team-mate Michael Ruben Rinaldi to claim fourth position.

In race two, Bautista charged into the lead from pole and led all the way in the 20-lap encounter to wrap up his first hat-trick of the season.

Bautista was five seconds clear at the half-way point in the race and unchallenged at the front as a battle for second place developed behind him involving Rinaldi, Rea, Axel Bassani (Motocorsa Ducati) and Razgatlioglu.

Rinaldi began to pull clear, while Rea capitalised on a double slipstream to pass Bassani and Razgatlioglu into Turn 1. Rea then began to hunt down Rinaldi in second and was closing the deficit to the Italian until he made a costly mistake, running wide at Turn 7 on lap 16.

That allowed Bassani and Razgatlioglu through and although Rea fought back and re-passed Bassani, he was unable to catch reigning champion Razgatlioglu.

Bautista crossed the line to win by eight seconds from Rinaldi, with Razgatlioglu just under a second back in third.

Rea was 1.1s down on Razgatlioglu as he completed the final race of the weekend in fourth ahead of Bassani and Xavi Vierge (team HRC).

Lowes was among the fallers in race two along with BMW’s Scott Redding and Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yamaha), while Andrea Locatelli (Pata Yamaha) finished outside the points in 16th after re-joining the race following a crash.

Eugene Laverty was 14th in both races on Sunday on the Bonovo Action BMW. The County Antrim riding will retire from racing at the end of this season.

Round nine of the championship takes place at Portimao in Portugal from October 7-9.