At the start of the race, reigning champion Toprak Razgatlioglu held the lead from pole position on his Yamaha, with Bautista sprinting from fifth to second ahead of Rea.
The top three riders started quickly pulling away from the rest of the field, with Razgatlioglu holding a narrow lead over Bautista and Rea.
The status quo was maintained until the sixth lap when Bautista dived down the inside of Razgatlioglu into Turn 8 to take the lead, with Rea also passing the Turkish rider just four corners later to demote him to third.
Bautista and Rea then indulged in a battle of their own, with Rea claiming the lead on the final lap to score his second win of the weekend and extend his lead in the championship.
Bautista was lucky in the end to hold on to second place, with Razgatlioglu finishing just 0.047s behind in a drag race to the finish line.
Andrea Locatelli bagged a solid haul of points on the second Yamaha to finish fourth, while MotoGP concert Iker Lecuona put on another strong performance on the Honda to grab fifth at the finish.
The top independent rider in the field was Bonovo BMW’s Loris Baz, who beat the GRT Yamaha of Garrett Gerloff by just under a second to sixth place.
Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Ducati) and Axel Bassani (Motocorsa) claimed the final points in eighth and ninth respectively ahead of Philipp Oettl (Go Eleven), while factory BMW rider Scott Redding missed out on a top 10 finish in 11th.
Kawasaki’s Alex Lowes suffered a second retirement in two races and will have to start this weekend’s final full-distance contest from the back of the pack.
The Superpole race ran to only nine laps after wildcard entrant Gabriele Ruiu stalled his BMW on the grid.
Assen WSBK - Superpole race results:
| Cla | # | Rider | Bike | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 65 |  Jonathan Rea | Kawasaki | |
| 2 | 19 |  Alvaro Bautista | Ducati | 0.220 |
| 3 | 1 |  Toprak Razgatlioglu | Yamaha | 0.267 |
| 4 | 55 |  Andrea Locatelli | Yamaha | 6.959 |
| 5 | 7 | Iker Lecuona | Honda | 11.997 |
| 6 | 76 |  Loris Baz | BMW | 12.953 |
| 7 | 31 |  Garrett Gerloff | Yamaha | 13.410 |
| 8 | 21 | Michael Ruben Rinaldi | Ducati | 13.512 |
| 9 | 47 | Axel Bassani | Ducati | 13.567 |
| 10 | 5 | Philipp Oettl | Ducati | 13.871 |
| 11 | 45 | Scott Redding | BMW | 14.239 |
| 12 | 97 | Xavi Vierge | Honda | 16.491 |
| 13 | 44 | Lucas Mahias | Kawasaki | 16.800 |
| 14 | 3 |  Kohta Nozane | Yamaha | 18.989 |
| 15 | 60 |  Michael van der Mark | BMW | 20.625 |
| 16 | 2 | Roberto Tamburini | Yamaha | 21.463 |
| 17 | 91 | Leon Haslam | Kawasaki | 23.762 |
| 18 | 36 |  Leandro Mercado | Honda | 23.998 |
| 19 | 23 | Christophe Ponsson | Yamaha | 24.207 |
| 20 | 29 |  Luca Bernardi | Ducati | 25.949 |
| 21 | 16 | Gabriele Ruiu | BMW | 33.209 |
| 22 | 35 |  Hafizh Syahrin | Honda | 33.519 |
| 23 | 52 | Oliver Konig | Kawasaki | 33.717 |
| 22 | Alex Lowes | Kawasaki | ||
| View full results | ||||
