BMW’ s Petrucci fractured his coccyx on the first lap of race one
he’ s back on deck, his chance of a top five series finish is likely gone so his focus will have to be getting fit, getting consistent on the bike and looking towards better luck, and form, in 2027. Experienced BMW pilot and ex-WorldSBK man Michael van der Mark came in and subbed for Oliveira but the expectation would have been that Danilo Petrucci would be leading the team’ s point scoring activities at Autodrom Most but a crash, a lot of bruising and a fractured coccyx( tailbone) on the opening lap of Race One, an incident that caused the race to be red-flagged, put an end to that hope as he, like Bautista, was ruled out of points-scoring activities for the weekend. Petrux was back on his feet a couple of days later but, as with Bautista, it’ s not clear how long it’ ll take him to be race-ready again. Best result of the weekend for Michael VDM was a tenth-place finish in the Sprint Race. All of this drama means that Sam Lowes dropped from third to fifth in the championship behind Montella and Baldassarri; Oliveira tumbles to eighth and will very likely be out of the top ten before he returns to the series.
SURRA VS GERLOFF MotoCorsa Ducati’ s Alberto Surra, Lowes’ nemesis in Race One, had impressed at Balaton Park although he tended to fade in the second half of races as tyre wear became a factor. He built on that at Round Five, using a Pirelli development tyre that he clearly found to his liking as he maintained much more effective late race pace. If there’ s a fault in his riding, he probably needs to curb his enthusiasm a little as it risks him getting a reputation that he doesn’ t need at this stage of his career. His dive under Lowes in Race One in Turn 16 whilst fighting for fourth place, and just after Lowes overtook him cleanly in Turn 15, was overly ambitious, a point he acknowledged, post-race. Lowes labelled it a‘ desperate,
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