Aruba.it Ducati rider Nicolo Bulega earned a truly dominant WorldSBK victory in Race 1 of the Dutch round in Assen.
The Italian secured his fourth race win of the season after claiming the lead in the early stages, before winning by 7.8s.
Bulega took the holeshot into Turn 1 as Sam Lowes lost his pole position and fell down to third place.
Yamahas Andrea Locatelli laid down a strong marker to climb into the lead into Turn 3 as he caught Bulega off guard.
The Pata Maxus Yamaha rider relinquished his lead later on inside the first lap as Bulega lunged his way through once again.
Bulega established a 0.5s advantage after Lap 1 before doubling his advantage by the end of Lap 2 to hold a 1.1s advantage over Locatelli.
Toprak Razgatlioglu qualified third but started sixth due to impeding in the Superpole, but climbed from seventh to fourth in only three laps.
The BMW rider and Danilo Petrucci lunged their way through two-time champion Alvaro Bautista in the early stages, as the former MotoGP riders went toe-to-toe in the opening stages.
On Lap 3, Bautista slotted his way through by producing an impressive block pass on Petrucci at Turn 8.
Further ahead, Razgatlioglu remained behind Marc VD rider Lowes and Bautista found his groove to slice his way through his rival.
The Spaniard was fastest in the first practice on Friday and had his eyes set on Lowes for third place, later setting the fastest lap of the race and was the only rider to lap inside the 1.33s bracket.
Razgatlioglu forged his way through both riders and on Lap 6 at Turn 9, Bautista produced an overly-optimistic move on Lowes which saw both riders retire into the gravel.
The 40-year-old lost the front which left Lowes nowhere to go, resulting in both Ducati riders ending Saturday without any points on the board.
Locatelli and Razgatlioglu bounced around the second sector and swapped positions, raising the defending champion to second place with only Bulega left on his hit list.
Bulega extended his advantage further over Razgatlioglu to over 5s by the midway point of the race, but Locatelli was all over the back of the Bavarian machine.
Locatelli showed his class to regain second place at Turn 5 where his competitor was notoriously fast all weekend, before building a second gap from the next two laps.
To make matters worse for the defending champion, Petrucci was waiting in the wings and was all over the back of Razgatlioglu’s rear tyre.
The three-time WorldSBK winner made an impressive move on Razgatlioglu at Turn 10, but on Lap 15 both riders swapped positions.
Petrucci lingered behind the BMW rider for the next five laps but extracted more grip out of his tyres to sneak back to third on Lap 18, before completing the race in third.
Bulega’s dominant win saw him take his fourth victory of the season in the glorious Dutch sunshine.
Yamahas Andrea Locatelli produced a strong performance to claim second place, finishing 7.8s behind the factory Ducati rider.
Barni Spark Racing’s Petrucci produced a strong third position and finished as the lead independent rider once again.
Razgtalioglu couldn’t offer anything significant in this race, finishing 17s adrift off his championship protagonist.
Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge rose through the field from a poor Superpole to finish fifth and sixth for Honda Racing.
The GRT Yamaha duo of Dominique Aegerter and Remy Gardner produced the goods to claim seventh and eighth place, respectively.
Michael van der Mark rose from 13th in qualifying to finish in ninth place, finishing ahead of former teammate Scott Redding who completed the top ten positions.
Alex Lowes crashed early on but regained composure to seal 11th place, giving Bimota points on the board considering Axel Bassani’s last-lap crash.
Tarran Mackenzie finished in 12th place after a late battle with Garrett Gerloff and Tito Rabat.
Ryan Vickers closed out the final point-scoring positions for his debut outing at Assen in the series.
