placed Garrett Gerloff (Bonovo
Action BMW) and then Alex
Lowes from passing him, and
Remy Gardner (GRT Yamaha)
was the final rider to head him
off. Gardner came through at
pace, with the same pace as
many of the leaders, if not the
same ability to qualify as well as
many of his rivals.
Gerloff was pleased with get
-
ting fourth despite not knowing
it. "I couldn't believe I was in
fourth," he said. "Honestly, I had
no idea I was in fourth. I feel
good on the bike. I feel like I'm
able to do some things on this
bike that maybe I couldn't do
on the Yamaha. So, that's really
promising."
The Superpole race went into
a mind-bending rabbit hole on
the first lap, as both Rea and
Lowes crashed by losing the
front independently on the apex
of the treacherous downhill and
off-camber T5 on the very first
lap.
It left the big guns of Toprak
and Alvaro to shoot it out for ev
-
ery available point. Razgatlioglu
wanted to win to keep his title
hopes alive, and Bautista wanted
to win the title a week early.
A win in the Superpole race
was what he needed, but after a
superb showing from Razgatlio
-
glu, Bautista waited and
pounced on the Yamaha rider
on the exit of the final curve,
powering past in a way that was
unmissably simple and yet com
-
prehensive. Toprak was visibly
angry. With Rea out, Locatelli
was third.
Remy Gardner (GRT Yamaha)
rode to fourth place, a personal
best for him. Iker Lecuona (HRC
Honda) took advantage of the
Rea/Lowes calamity in green
to take fifth place, while Rinaldi
finished sixth. Van der Mark was
seventh again.
Race two saw Rea in the wars
yet again, as he tried to pass
Bassani inside at T3 on lap one,
but only ran out of space and
had to lift his bike up while brak
-
ing hard, pushing Xavi Vierge's
Honda off track, and also forcing
Scott Redding to take avoiding
action.
Rea had started from 10th
due to his Superpole race DNF
and was soon down in 16th after
taking a ride-through penalty
VOLUME ISSUE OCTOBER , P37
Garrett Gerloff had another promising race
when he finished fourth in race one.
