Aruba.it Ducati’s Alvaro Bautista has now taken five wins from six WorldSBK races, but the missing victory was actually a trip to the gravel rather than a mere second or third place at Mandalika.
If you must crash in a WorldSBK race then the Superpole Race is the one to do it in, as your loss of points is only a maximum of 12, not 25. Bautista was not in the lead to lose even 12 points when he fell and no-scored, but had just been overtaken by Jonathan Rea.
After securing the Race Two win, and feeling a lot better about himself as he left Lombok with a 37 point lead over Toprak Razgatlioglu, Bautista described how he became one of the many victims of the incredibly slippery off-line track surface at Lombok.
“I entered to the corner 12,” the reigning champion recounted. “Jonathan came up the inside. Both of us wanted to go in the good line, and then we went both out of the line.
“In this track if you go out of the line it’s very easy to crash.
“I tried to pick up the bike, tried to be smooth with the gas, but I just touched a little bit the gas and ‘schoom…!’ I lost the rear. Also Jonathan was the same, so it’s dangerous. I think in a normal track, I wouldn’t crash but lucky that I was not injured.”
Bautista was cool with Rea’s pass, saying it was not the cause of his fall, even if his great desire to stay close and open the throttle early was his ultimate undoing.
“For sure, if I’m alone, I don’t go out of the line,” Bautista said. “He tried to overtake me, so normal. But the problem is when you have like this good asphalt, if both want to enter, it’s impossible. I don’t want to just let him pass and go to the front so I tried just to stay. He tried to stay. I don’t really know if we touch or not, but it was a good
Boxing
Barcelona
Jonathan Rea