Reigning WorldSBK Champion Jonathan Rea prevailed in the final WorldSBK desert dust-up after a three-way battle with Alvaro Bautista and Chaz Davies in the last race of the 2019 season.
The Ducati pair hassled Rea for most of the race, with Bautista taking the lead briefly a couple of times, but with four laps left, Rea put the hammer down to open a two-second gap over the Panigales.
Davies nicked second place with three laps left and looked like the rider of seasons past, eventually beating the former MotoGP rider by a tenth.
Behind, the three riders chasing the eventual third place in the championship, and the bonuses that go with it, were locked together at mid-race distance; VDM, Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Team), Toprak Razgatlioglu (Turkish Puccetti Racing), with Leon Haslam (Kawasaki Racing Team) joining in on lap nine.
Razgatlioglu dropped off the back of that group, but came back into contention later, with Eugene Laverty (Team GoEleven Ducati) also making progress into that battling gaggle of riders.
Lowes, despite not having to, passed VDM to lead his group on lap 12, and he eased away to finish fourth, but more importantly ensure third place overall in a tough season for all the riders behind Rea and Bautista.
Razgatlioglu finished fifth, and won his Turkish Puccetti Racing squad the Independent Teams’ Award.
Laverty was sixth, VDM seventh and Loris Baz (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha) recovered from a tough early start to finish eighth.
Haslam was ninth and Sandro Cortese (GRT Yamaha) tenth. In his last ever WorldSBK race Marco Melandri (GRT Yamaha) was 17th.
In the final points table, Rea has 663, Bautista 498, Lowes 341, VDM 327, Razgatlioglu 315, Davies 294 and Haslam 281.