Alvaro Bautista continues World Superbike dominance

Alvaro Bautista continued his superb start to the 2019 World Superbike Championship by completing a second successive hat-trick of victories in round two in Thailand.

The Spanish Ducati rider led from start to finish to win race two in Buriram on Sunday, following up his Superpole success earlier in the day and race one victory on Saturday.

British pair Jonathan Rea and Alex Lowes, riding for Kawasaki and Yamaha teams respectively, finished second and third in all three races in Thailand.

Bautista tops the standings with 124 points, with Rea – who also finished runner-up three times in round one in Australia – in second on 98. Lowes is third with 69 and Yamaha ride Michael Van Der Mark fourth with 61.

Bautista took a firm grip early on in the second race in Thailand and went on to win by over 10 seconds in a dominant display.

The scrap between Rea and Lowes for second was tighter, particularly in the early stages, but the former held on to his advantage.

Yamaha’s Van Der Mark edged a close battle with Kawasaki’s Leon Haslam to take fourth while another Yamaha rider, Marco Melandri, finished sixth.

Welshman Chaz Davies, on his Ducati, had also been involved in this battle but was forced to retire on lap eight due to a technical issue. He followed BMW Motorrad’s Tom Sykes, who had to quit on lap four, out of the race.