his braking, and Lowes' bike hit
his leg so hard it broke bones in
his lower leg and ankle.
Some gave Lowes pelters for
his maneuver, but via Twitter,
Baz told them to lay off his mate,
Alex, as it was just one of those
things.
A short time later Rea passed
Bautista for second place behind
the fleeing Razgatlioglu, the
eventual deserved race win
-
ner. As he did so, both Rea and
Bautista ended up off line on the
slippery stuff.
Bautista lost the rear as he
accelerated, falling without injury
but no-scoring.
A major surprise after his four
wins in succession, but anybody
could fall at Mandalika this
weekend, and many did.
Rea also came close to a
crash, spinning up, snapping
sideways, and his recovery
allowed both eventual second-
place rider Locatelli and third-
place finisher Lowes through.
Rea was fourth, Bassani fifth
and Xavi Vierge a strong sixth,
just over 4.2 seconds down on
the winner.
In race two, there was another
stopped and restarted race, with
two parts but only the second
one counting.
Van der Mark highsided
spectacularly from his BMW,
and fractured a finger, as he was
to find out later. The following
Philipp Ottl (Go Eleven Ducati)
could not avoid the stricken
BWM and crashed into it at
speed.
With debris all over the track,
the race was red flagged, and
after a long wait for a restart of
the race that had already begun
five minutes late, there was to be
a final 14-lap sort out for the top
riders to navigate.
The actual second race would
see Michael Ruben Rinaldi mak
-
ing up for all his misfortune to
lead it. For a long time but not all
time.
Bautista, his teammate,
closed in for the final glory. He
was saved any arduous last
corner handlebar squabble when
Rinaldi ran straight on just after
Bautista had passed him. Rinaldi
had missed his braking marker,
losing track position to the point
whereby he would finish fourth,
not second at worst.
Even though Razgatlioglu
would finish second, the final
Indonesian race was a real
breakthrough for Vierge, who se
-
cured his first WorldSBK podium
thanks to determination and
desire as much as anything else.
Locatelli was fifth and Petrucci
the best independent rider, in
sixth place.
Garrett Gerloff's second round
as a BMW rider netted the Texan
a series of 14th-, 12th- and 13th-
place finishes.
"It's not as far up as I obvious
-
ly want to be, but considering
where we finished race one and
how race two went, I'm really
happy with the improvement,"
Gerloff said. "It's going to take
some time to be consistently
out on top, but I don't think we
are super far away so I'm happy
about that! Yet I feel super bad
for my teammate Loris. I saw
the video and that definitely
didn't look nice but I saw he was
in good spirits and I hope he
heals up as fast as possible and
comes back to Assen to race
with us."
In the points, Rinaldi has 112
to Razgatlioglu's 75. Locatelli
has 70, Bassani 51 and Rinaldi
47.
VOLUME ISSUE MARCH , P33
Toprak Razgatlioglu (54) came
away with the Superpole win.
Bautista (1) was second.
