realistically, 6th would be the best he could hope for unless a lot of riders drop a lot of points in the last five rounds. Although, to be fair, we’ ve seen plenty of points dropped already this season so perhaps top five is still achievable for the likeable Spainard.
SURRA Alberto Surra on the Motocorsa Ducati had shown real improvements in the last couple of rounds, especially in the area of tyre wear management and we’ ve got used to seeing him challenging in the top five, so three 6th place finishes almost feels like a drop in form even though the reality is that he scored 23-points, his best haul of the season. It would’ ve been even better if he’ d not been handed a three-second penalty, costing him two places, in the Sprint when he was adjudged to have impeded, and not given a place back to BMW’ s Miguel Oliveira, following an unsafe rejoin after running wide. Surra sits in 10th spot in the championship heading to Round 8 at the UK’ s Donington Park.
BALDASSARRI GoEleven Ducati’ s Lorenzo Baldassarri qualified 7th and was putting Alex Lowes under pressure when he crashed out on lap 5 of Race One but 5th in the Sprint race( 6th on track, elevated to 5th as a result of Surra’ s penalty) was more like the Balda we’ ve seen recently. Race Two just didn’ t go his way. Early contact with Oliveira and then Bautista dropped him way back and then another contact, this time with Vierge, forced him to stop briefly to put his boot back on! It’ s remarkable that he still finished 15th to score a single point in Race
42 KIWI RIDER