Alvaro Bautista (Barni Spark
Racing Ducati) was fourth, lead-
ing to the first Ducati one-two-
three-four at Assen since
race
one in 2004.
Bautista got away and clear
to fourth, but only after he and
fifth-placed Alex Lowes (bimota
by Kawasaki Racing Team) had
collided hard enough for Lowes
to have lost his right-hand wing
-
let on the main straight.
There were
some other race-
one dramas for riders with big
winglets on their bikes, as Danilo
Petrucci's (BMW Motorrad) two
long-lap penalties turned into a
near disaster. He hit the pro
-
nounced lip/dip on the long-lap
entry and
ran off track. He re-
joined to finish what he said was
one
of the most sad and disap-
pointing races of his long career.
Having
qualified fourth, 18th was
not on his pre-race bingo card.
His weekend got better in the
Superpole race with seventh, and
the equal best BMW result of
the weekend, shared with Miguel
Oliveira.
Even the big-built Petrucci re
-
ally found his BMW a non-turning
handful
at Assen (and he also
complained of a lack of accel
-
eration), but for the triple Porti-
mao hero Oliveira, seventh in the
opener was as
good as it got. He
would be 11th in the Superpole
race and 12th in race two, so a
repeat of Portimao's sun-kissed
three podiums it really was not.
Bimota's Lowes would finish
fifth again in the Superpole race,
behind the same top four Duca
-
tis, but a weird problem with
corner-entry rear traction
from
lap five of race two saw him go
from fourth to 11th, still two
places better off than his unwell
teammate Axel Bassani.
Bizarrely, bimota had lost
half a kg/h of fuel flow at this
round, just like Ducati, so if the
idea of the balancing rules is to
keep everybody competitive, the
evidence from Assen is that the
bike that has dogged the Dukes
most doggedly had been slightly
muzzled.
Even some Ducati riders said
they could not understand it,
as they could already pass the
bimotas at will on the straights.
VOLUME 63 ISSUE 16 APRIL 21, 2026 P33
After 65 attempts,
Philipp Oettl (65) finally
grabbed a WorldSSP
win in race two.
