FIGHTING FOR THE LAST STEP Yari Montella, after an up and down start to the season, has hit a good rhythm, was second only to Bulega in qualifying, took out three third place finishes and, whilst some way adrift of the Aruba. it guys, was never under significant pressure. Maintaining pace whilst not having anyone around you as a reference isn’ t always the easiest position to be in but Montella didn’ t really put a foot wrong at Autodrom Most and that gave him his first hat-trick of podiums at a round of WorldSBK. Whatever Montella’ s early season issues were, he and the team have worked through them and there was no point at Round Five where he looked like there was a risk of an unforced terminal error. This was Montella’ s best weekend by far and thirty-nine points on the board is a marked improvement over Portimão and Assen and shows further progress from his good form at Balaton Park.
Montella’ s Barni Spark teammate Alvaro Bautista, who had looked to reset a little after looking out of sorts early in the season, fractured multiple bones in his right foot after a high-speed crash in FP3 and that ruled him out of the weekend’ s racing. Bautista required surgery to repair the damage and his recovery timeline isn’ t yet clear. Montella’ s closest contender for best independent rider had been Sam Lowes and after a poor Round Four, Lowes would have been eyeing up Most as an opportunity to wash away that disappointment. Instead, it turned into another disaster. A clash with Alberto Surra, for which Surra was deemed at fault and handed a long lap penalty, put Lowes on the ground and out of the points in Race One. Another fall, possibly a consequence of him reacting to Bulega getting himself in a little trouble and running wide right in front of Lowes at the start of the
28 KIWI RIDER