Heading into WorldSBK Round Three at Assen, Ducati was looking nearly unbeatable. Nicolo Bulega was on a winning streak for Aruba. it and teammate Iker Lecuona was hitting his marks not only as Bulega’ s wingman but also as the rider most likely to end Bulega’ s unbeaten run.
WHERE WE’ RE AT In the Ducati supported teams, Sam Lowes has been scoring good points for himself and the Marc VDS team despite his hand injury, GoEleven’ s Lorenzo Baldassarri had exceeded expectations and Barni Spark Racing would be looking good if only Alvaro Bautista and Yari
Montella could stop crashing. Bimota, and especially Alex Lowes, had established a good rhythm at Rounds One and Two whilst BMW’ s Miguel Oliveira had put a poor Round One behind him and really got down to business at Portimao looking to have adapted to the BMW a little more effectively than teammate Danilo Petrucci. Yamaha was looking a bit strung out with Andrea Locatelli not finding the form we know he’ s capable of and newly minted teammate Xavi Vierge seemed to be getting more out of the bike than Loka. Honda, with Jonathan Rea onboard subbing for Jake Dixon, were having even less impact than they had toward the end of the
KIWI RIDER 25