Alvaro Bautista's march towards back-to-back WorldSBK Championship titles showed no signs of easing up as he completed a consummate triple victory - his third of the season - in Round 4 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

On the weekend the ex-MotoGP rider confirmed he will remain with Aruba.it Ducati for the 2024 WorldSBK season, Bautista produced arguably the most commanding race weekend of his career with three wins from three pole positions.

In the end, the only blemish on his copybook would be his failure to lead every single lap of the weekend after a ballsy Toprak Razgatlioglu - benefiting from starting second for the final race of the event - darted through at Turn 5 on the opening revolution to lead across the line at the end of lap one.

However, it was to be a false hope for the Turk, with Bautista and his team-mate Michael Ruben Rinaldi already up alongside and drafting through on the run to Turn 1, the Spaniard moving back into a lead he'd extend to more than eight seconds come the flag.

Indeed, despite a smattering of rain in the early stages prompting some caution for the riders, it soon cleared to allow Bautista to collect his 11th victory of the year so far, already the 43rd of his career - all achieved in little more than two seasons on the Ducati.

Having been dumped out of Race 1 following a controversial altercation with Axel Bassani and seen a podium go awry in the Superpole Race after dropping from second to eighth in the latter laps of the Superpole Race, Rinaldi looked to be on course for a confidence-boosting second place in Race 2.

However, despite dispatching of a keen Alex Lowes early on and extending his margin over the chasing pack to almost three seconds, his tyres faded dramatically in the closing stages, ceding all of that advantage to a charging Razgatlioglu in the final two laps.

With the Turk's astute management of his rubber allowing him superior pace late on, he got the run on Rinaldi coming out of the final corner to snatch second at the flag.

Behind Rinaldi, Lowes notched up a rare 'win' over Kawasaki team-mate Jonathan Rea, the Briton making the most of his loftier grid position to collect fourth, while his six-time WorldSBK Championship winning team-mate - a faller in the Superpole Race - had to settle for fifth having chewed up too much of his tyres trying to recover from tenth on the grid.

Xavi Vierge came on strong in the closing stages to catch and pass Andrea Locatelli for sixth place, while Dominique Aegerter followed his fellow Yamaha rider across the line for eighth. Iker Lecuona and top BMW rider Garrett Gerloff completed the top ten.

Axel Bassani completed a disappointing weekend in 11th, the Italian getting the better of Danilo Petrucci late on, while Remy Gardner, Philipp Oettl and Bradley Ray completed the points' paying positions.

A race of high attrition to go with the two non-starters in Oliver Konig and Eric Granado, Petronas MIE Honda's bruising weekend was compounded by Hafizh Syahrin being involved in a race-ending clash with Tom Sykes. The Malaysian was taken to the medical centre, just as team-mate Granado was after his fall in Race 1.

Others failing to finish included Scott Redding, who pulled off with mechanical problems and Lorenzo Baldassarri.

WorldSBK Catalunya - Race 2 Results