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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1526445
fairing suddenly came loose and was flapping in the breeze. Now, with a clear track in front of him, VDM used all his consider- able experience to bring it home. Early fallers were Bulega and Jonathan Rea (Pata Prometeon Yamaha), with Bulega crashing in front of Jonathan Rea in the final chicane of lap one and Rea falling while trying to avoid the stricken Ducati and rider. Rea hurt his right thumb significantly enough to not be able to ride again and need immediate surgery. Second, by a miracle of even more experience, was Alvaro Bautista. Seventeenth in Super - pole, he pitted first for rain tires and then just racked up fast laps, with only one moment to slow his pace when so many other top riders fell. Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Ducati) was third, but over 24 seconds behind. In the 10-lap Sunday Superpole race, Bulega and Alex Lowes fought it out for a win, both des - perate to make up for their race- one no-score disappointment. A small but significant enough mistake from Lowes, trying to pass Bulega two laps from the finish, saw a small gap finally develop, and it was enough to let Bulega take only his second win of the year and shrink the advantage of the injured Toprak Razgatlioglu (who suffered a back contusion in a crash in FP2)—a little. Third was again Petrucci, win - ning a fight with Redding, who was riding more like his old self again. Alvaro Bautista joined the list of riders with injuries that would not let them see out the week - end when he fell at T6 and broke a rib. This made the second race a very rare thing, a contest with no previous WorldSBK Champion actively competing. The last time that happened was in 2013, just before Tom Sykes became World Champion. Race two was dry for the re - duced WorldSBK field of 20. It was a dramatic start for Alex Lowes, who thought his bike was having a technical issue. He ran off track in case it was dropping fluids. He inspected it and got going again, riding almost to the podium place in an assured fashion. Out front, there was only going to be one winner, and that was Bulega, all fired up and not only fit to ride but fit to win again, and more comprehensively this time. He ended up over two seconds clear of Petrucci, who was hav - ing his third podium success and second place this time, not third. An amazing result for Gerloff saw him take his first podium for BMW, his soon-to-be-gone Bonovo Action BMW team's first podium in WorldSBK and his own first po- dium in two years, the last being at the 2022 Catalunya round. He was only 4.3 seconds away from his first win in WorldSBK before he heads off to be a Ka- wasaki rider in 2025. Fourth, by some miracle of po- tentially race-winning pace, Lowes made up so much lost time and passed 15 riders in 21 laps. VDM was fifth, the last of Lowes' "victims." A strong showing from Remy Gardner placed him sixth, but of maybe more immediate impor - tance was that the recent test for HRC in Estoril saw Xavi Vierge seventh and able to fight more on worn tires. His teammate Iker Lecuona would have been higher up in the results had he not taken a track-cutting penalty. He had a long-lap-equivalent time applied, which put him 10th. After a French war of attrition and injury for the three most recent World Championship win- ners, Razgatlioglu, Rea, and then VOLUME ISSUE SEPTEMBER , P37 Nicolo Bulega (11) bounced back for a win in race two.