was, once again, riding almost
perfectly, and as soon as Rea
made a small error, a bigger gap
developed. At that point, Rea
was racing for second place on
a worn-out front tire.
Razgatlioglu (Yamaha) was
third in what had not been a
great weekend by his high stan
-
dards.
Fourth was Andrea Locatelli
(Yamaha), after a cheeky but
completely clean pass on the
inside of 11th place starter, Axel
Bassani, who ended up fifth.
Sixth was the rapidly advanc
-
ing Yamaha Independent rider,
Dominique Aegerter.
In the Superpole Race, on
a cool Sunday morning with
70-degree track temperatures, a
delayed start after a suspected
oil leak saw the usual 10-lap
race reduced to eight.
That may have helped some
riders imagine it would make
Bautista's tail unit more magnet
-
ic to their front number plates,
but he was to eventually ease
away from the hard-charging
Rea by almost a whole second.
Starting from pole in this race,
as his penalty did not roll over,
Bautista passed early leader Rea
and was in control from then on.
Razgatlioglu was third, as
the big three again re-asserted
themselves after some weird
Rea and Razgatlioglu results in
some earlier races of the year.
Alex Lowes (Kawasaki) was
fourth and well ahead of the
next-best riders, Locatelli and
Bassani. Aegerter and Scott
Redding (BMW) were both about
seven seconds behind the race
winner.
The final race would again
belong, and clearly so, to Bau
-
tista, with Razgatlioglu almost
four seconds back despite his
early pugilism and trying to goad
Rea into a tag-team attack on
Bautista.
Rea tried his best and felt
good on his bike, but he was
to fall on lap six, tracing his fall
back to his gear lever being
pushed or pressurized acciden
-
tally and changing gear while he
was at absolute full lean.
He was frustrated but recov
-
ered his smile by the time he
VOLUME ISSUE APRIL , P45
Scott Redding (45) is
having a torrid time on the
BMW while Remy Gardner
(87) is coming on strong.
