qualifying, or Superpole in WorldSBK parlance, can really hurt a rider’ s weekend. Take Bimota’ s Axel Bassani for example- great race pace but seventeenth in qualifying just gave him too much work to do and failing to get into the top nine in the Sprint Race meant another poor grid position for Race Two. He recovered well to score points in both full-length races, but a better qualifying result would surely have seen him improve on those positions. At the top end of town, Bulega aced pole with his usual end of session blitz and Sam Lowes managed to edge Lecuona for second on the grid.
THE DOMINATION THEME CONTINUES The first race was red-flagged after only nine laps when Tommy Bridewell destroyed his bike and a bit of the air fence, whilst, very fortunately, avoiding any significant injury. Bridewell had qualified well, missing out on a row two slot by one thousandth of a second but the crash ended his chances of capitalising on that. No points were awarded from the red-flagged session and the race was re-run as a twelve lapper with grid positions based on each rider’ s position at the time of the red-flag. Only fourteen starters made the grid for the re-run and, amongst the absentees, Yamaha’ s Stefano Manzi was also lucky to escape injury after a fierce highside landed him on his head. Once racing resumed, it was another three wins from three starts for Nicolo Bulega and his hands are firmly wrapped around the riders’ championship even if, mathematically, he could still be beaten. Teammate Lecuona was able to lead both Race One and the Sprint Race in the early phases, but Bulega stuck to his script, passed Lecuona and that was it. In Race Two, Lecuona never had a sniff of the lead and Bulega just walked away with it. On Lap nineteen, Race Two was also red-
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