While Aruba.it Ducati’s Michael Rinaldi was an odds-on podium finisher as WorldSBK rolled into Mandalika, the weekend didn’t go to plan for the determined Italian. What looked like a nailed-on Race Two win suddenly became a probable second when a red flag was thrown and his teammate Alvaro Bautista caught and passed him with two laps to go of the restarted race.
A late slip-up under braking on the final lap and Rinaldi went from second to fourth, snatching even a podium-shaped defeat from the jaws of near victory.
It had been a strange Indonesian weekend for the 27-year-old, building on podiums from each dry race at Phillip Island just a few days earlier, to have more than one major disappointment at Mandalika despite being one of the pre-race podium favourites.
Harsh, when he led the first part, and then 12-laps of the final (shortened) Race Two? Maybe not by Rinaldi’s new self-imposed standards, since he turned his training regime and overall approach to his day job around in the winter.