There were plenty of fallers over the weekend, thankfully no serious injuries
injuries to finish a magnificent eighth, ahead of teammate Montella who again wasn’ t in the same form we’ d seen from him at Autodrom Most. Locatelli and Mackenzie had come together on the first lap and that was the end of the race for them.
RACE TWO Race Two was just as spectacular as Race One. That’ s to say, not much. Turn One on lap one could have easily turned into carnage as Vierge had a monumental slide on the Yamaha and Balda had no chance of avoiding him. Both went down and out of the race, but miraculously, everyone else avoided the mess. Bulega and Lecuona stretched their legs out front and from there it was a repeat of the Race One procession, with Bulega, Lecuona and Sam Lowes taking the podium. The Bimota boys rounded out a satisfying weekend with Alex Lowes, in 4th, leading Bassani home. Gerloff took 6th which meant that the Kawasaki powered Bimotas finished ahead of the Kawasaki powered Kawasaki in every race of the weekend. Montella fell whilst under no pressure on lap nine, a habit which he seemed to have broken in recent rounds and the look on Team Manager Marco Barnabò’ s face suggested he wouldn’ t be giving Montella a hug when he got back to pitlane. Bautista bettered his Sprint Race finish by coming home 7th, a remarkable end to the weekend when he was clearly( very) walking wounded. Surra’ s 9th rounded out a weekend that wasn’ t quite as good as it might have been, but there were still a lot of positives to take away from it given he’ s performing well above expectations. Bridewell scored another top 10 finish and would be delighted with the advances he and the team are making. This was by far his best round of the year and 20 points is a great haul for a team that’ s essentially still in its start-up phase.
90 KIWI RIDER