Alvaro Bautista maintained his perfect run of victories to clinch his 15th win in 16 races as he took a first win on British soil in the WorldSBK Championship during Race 1 at Donington Park.

The only 'bogey' track on the calendar for Bautista - in that it is the only circuit he has never won a WorldSBK race at - he was made to work hard for victory during the early stages but once he had clear air he was never bothered thereafter.

Indeed, while Bautista was the rider to get the hole-shot into Turn 1 over pole sitter Jonathan Rea, the Ulsterman fought his way back through on lap two when the Spaniard got his braking wrong into the Esses and ran wide.

Bautista was then demoted to third by Toprak Razgatlioglu at the Melbourne hairpin, before then briefly slipping to fourth when he was mugged through the Old Hairpin by Alex Lowes.

However, Bautista quickly regrouped, re-taking third from Lowes before latching onto the battle for the lead behind Razgatlioglu and Rea, who evoked memories of their 2021 WorldSBK title battle as they jousted for position on lap seven.

Sensing his opportunity, Bautista hustled his way past Rea for second on the run down the Esses, before getting his move done for the lead even earlier on the straight as he drafted by Razgatlioglu for the lead on lap nine.

From here, Bautista was never bothered again, the Spaniard steadily moving clear of his rivals to come across the line with almost four seconds in hand over the Turk.

A 15th win of the season for the runaway series leader, Bautista is now 91 points clear of Razgatlioglu in what is increasingly looking like will be back-to-back title wins for the Aruba.it Ducati rider.

Behind Razgatlioglu, Rea fended off the late attentions of Danilo Petrucci, the ex-MotoGP rider nonetheless putting in his strongest performance of the year for a career-best fourth place.

Andrea Locatelli hunted down and passed Alex Lowes to finish fifth, with the Kawasaki rider himself holding off Axel Bassani for sixth.

Scott Redding came from a long way back to cross the line in eighth, the Briton getting the better of stand-in team-mate Tom Sykes on the final lap, the 2013 WorldSBK champion nonetheless showing well on the BMW M 1000 RR for ninth.

A late retirement for Philipp Oettl allowed Remy Gardner to pop into the top ten, ahead of Xavi Vierge and a fading Dominique Aegerter, while Michael Ruben Rinaldi - who made an error on lap one - Lorenzo Baldassarri and Isaac Viñales completed the top fifteen, the latter scoring his first point of the season on the TPR by Vinales Racing Kawasaki.

Elsewhere, there was disappointment for Bradley Ray after he was bundled out of the race on lap one in an incident involving Garrett Gerloff.