Miguel Oliveira
Yari Montella
Alvaro Bautista Nicolò Bulega
he would have finished significantly further up the field had he not incurred a double long lap penalty for a jump start. His third-place finish in Race One gave a much more realistic sense of his pace.
MOTOGP REFUGEE Oliveira was impressive although his total points score for the weekend doesn’ t entirely reflect it. He’ d been hamstrung by poor qualifying but redeemed himself in the races and carved through the field, looking more assured than teammate Petrucci in both of the full-length races to land a couple of top 10 finishes, which was pretty spectacular given how much ground he had to make up. He didn’ t feature in the Tissot Superpole which was to be expected given the limited number of laps available to make progress from his starting spot at the back of the grid. Oliveira
came away from the weekend in high spirits and aware that he shouldn’ t make such a complete mess of quali again in future. Montella on the Barni Spark Ducati was having a solid weekend with a podium in Race One and a fourth place finish in Tissot Superpole but crashing out whilst in second place in the second, wet, full length race wasn’ t the way he, or his team management, would have liked to end the weekend. His Barni teammate Bautista scored a podium in Race Two, largely as a result of Montella’ s crash but Bautista himself had crashed out in Race One so whilst Barni Spark did well through the weekend, they left some very valuable points on the table that could’ ve been theirs. If they can stay upright, Montella and Bautista should provide lots of entertainment as they challenge for the independent rider trophy. Alex Lowes on the Bimota and twin brother
46 KIWI RIDER