Aruba.It Ducati rider Nicolo Bulega dominated Race 1 of the Australian WorldSBK round to take a commanding victory over the field.
Bulega won the race by just under five seconds ahead of reigning world champion Toprak Razgatlioglu and teammate Alvaro Bautista.
The Italian got away well from pole position and was able to maintain his lead going into the first corner.
Razgatlioglu made a good initial launch from second on the grid, but the power of the Ducati machinery allowed Andrea Iannone and Bautista to get past the BMW on the rundown to turn 1.
A dramatic first lap further down the field saw Remy Gardner crash out of his home race, but the Yamaha rider was able to quickly rejoin.
Iannone appeared to have a technical issue as he ran wide and dropped from second down to fifth. The Italian continued to struggle on braking throughout the race and fell out of podium contention.
Scott Redding made a fantastic start and pulled a strong move on Bautista to move into the podium positions.
Razgatlioglu soon came under pressure from the British rider and made a mistake into turn 1, which allowed the Ducati trio of Redding, Bautista and Danilo Petrucci all through.
Bautista and Redding made contact a few corners later as the former world champion regained second place from the Brit.
Razgatlioglu was looking to recover something from a difficult weekend and pulled a strong move on Petrucci, which allowed BMW teammate Michael van der Mark to also take advantage.
Van der Mark seemed the faster of the BMW teammates but crashed out of the race in Turn 1 while trying to force a move on Razgatlioglu.
It was agreed that the riders had to make a pit stop ahead of the weekend due to the unpredictable weather and track temperature at Phillip Island.
The first riders came into the pits with 11 laps to go, with Bulega and Bautista among the first riders to make their stops.
The tyre change allowed Razgatlioglu to regain some of the momentum he lost after his mistake, as the Turkish rider got the jump on Redding and Bautista in the pitlane.
Bautista had the pace to challenge and was able to pass Redding and Petrucci as he set his sights on Razgatlioglu in second.
The Spanish former champion continued to press the Turkish rider going onto the final lap of the race, but was unable to find a way through on the world champion.
Out front, Bulega continued his dominance and took the chequered flag by 4.811s.
Razgatlioglu was able to hold onto second place ahead of Bautista in third.
Petrucci was top independent rider for the Barni Spark Racing team in fourth while Redding was fifth for MGM Benovo.
Iannone persisted after his problems early in the race and took sixth place while Andrea Locatelli finished seventh for Yamaha.
The Bimota pairing were eighth and ninth, with Alex Lowes leading Axel Bassani over the line, while Sam Lowes rounded out the top ten for MarcVDS.
Xavi Vierge was 11th for HRC ahead of GYTR GRT Yamaha’s Dominique Aegerter in 12th.
WorldSBK debutant Ryan Vickers was 13th for Motocorsa while Tetsuta Nagashima took 14th.
Bahattin Sofuoglu was 15th for Motoxracing and took the final point on his WorldSBK debut.
