Race one was clearly going to be a
fight between the top two, at the end
at least, but there was an even tougher
contest in the first corner of the first lap.
Five riders were involved as Axel Bas-
sani and Michael van der Mark clashed
and crashed and took three other riders
either out or off track and scrabbling to
recover.
As the lap continued, everybody
thought that things would be clear by the
time the protagonists got back around,
but a red flag was shown and the race
was reduced to 20 laps, not 21.
The real race got going with Razgatlio-
glu taking it steady and rapidly dropping
to fifth place. He was not in champion-
ship-management mode, surely.
Not him? No, not him, as he got going
again and would eventually hit the front.
Toprak eased away to a 1.8-second
advantage, then started to slow with a
worn rear tire.
Bulega maybe smelled extra crimson
points in the water for his Ducati and
pushed on, closing the gap to less than
a second. Then, a big loss of rear trac
-
tion and a series of high-power fishtails
(Below) Alvaro
Bautista's (19) late-
season form sees
him vault into third in
the points standings.
Jonathan Rea (65)
said Bautista's speed
down the straight was
"demoralizing." (Right)
Bobby Fong made the
first of two wild-card
appearances at Estoril.
He came away with
a 17th in race one,
and 18th in both the
Superpole race and
race two in what was
a difficult weekend for
himself and the
Attack Performance
Yamaha team.
VOLUME ISSUE OCTOBER , P65
