Alberto Surra
WILD BRAKING In the Barni Spark Ducati camp, Alvaro Bautista and Yari Montella had crashed their way through rounds one and two, dusted themselves off and raced like adults at round three in Assen, and, whilst Bautista couldn’ t quite repeat his Assen performances, Montella had his best round of the season taking home 34 points. Both riders scored points in all three races. Montella, the team’ s chief points scorer across the weekend, was pretty wild under brakes in the early part of race one but he settled down into an efficient rhythm for the rest of the weekend. He didn’ t quite have what was required to make it on to the podium for the first two races but edged Balda’ out for third place in race two to score some well-earned glory. Bautista’ s third row grid position from qualifying was no better than we’ ve come to expect from him but we’ d all like to see him closer to the front because third row is not the launch pad he needs to be able to mix it with those who qualify better. He did show early race pace in Race One and the Sprint race taking two top-five finishes but eleventh in Race Two behind Mackenzie, Gardner and Manzi was less impressive. For Kawasaki, Garrett Gerloff improved through the weekend. He started to show some form in the Sprint race, coming home eighth but then fifth in Race Two, his best result of the season so far, was some excellent Texan icing on the cake. Hopefully this will give him confidence heading into the next rounds. Gerloff’ s an exciting rider and we need him to be punching at the weight we know he’ s capable of.
SURPRISE OF THE WEEKEND Alberto Surra on the Motocorsa Racing Ducati was a surprise. Third row on the grid and holding down second place in the race early laps for race one was great to see. His lack of experience in managing tyre wear saw
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