Bautista, the new leader, and Toprak share Sunday’s victories
Alvaro Bautista is the new leader of the World Superbike Championship. The Spanish rider took his second victory of the 2024 season this Sunday in Assen in the Superpole race, in which he made a fantastic comeback. take the lead in the overall drivers’ standings from Nicolo Bulega, who was second in this short race.
Toprak Razgatlioğlu, for his part, won race 2 in a fantastic and very smart way., managing the pace until it started to rain midway through the test. However, his failure in the short race (he was ninth) forces him to leave the Cathedral, 6 points behind Bautista.albeit with the feeling that this year it will be able to compete with BMW.
Superpole race in Assen: Bautista shines with magnificent comeback
In Sunday’s short race in Assen, the protagonists were Ducati. First of all, the race was led by Nicolo Bulega. The Italian made a great start, took the lead ahead of Jonathan Rea and began to push forward until he had about three seconds to spare, a very big difference for what is typical of a Superpole race.
It should be noted that the transalpine racer was greatly helped by the use of the softest specification Pirelli tires, which caused them to fail in the second half of the race. And then Alvaro Bautista appeared. The Spaniard started slowly and even fell back somewhat, reaching eighth position in the peloton.
But after a few laps he started to come back and it was virtually effortless for him to move into second position and go on the hunt to catch his teammate. Entering the final third of the race, he caught up, passed him easily, and eventually won the race by more than two and a half seconds. This result automatically made him the new leader of the general classification.
Bulega finished comfortably in second, with Alex Lowes stealing third from Remy Gardner right at the end into the final corner. Finishing further were Jonathan Rea, Andrea Locatelli, Sam Lowes, Michael van der Mark and Toprak Razgatlioglu. The Turk was second at the start of the test, but gradually fell apart until he was eventually overtaken even by his official BMW teammate, clearly out of rhythm and probably also weighed down by his tyres.
Assen Race 2: very serious Toprak does not forgive Bautista
Bautista inherited pole position from the previous race, followed by Bulega and Lowes. The three drivers on the front row were running the same tyres, not opting for the hard rubber which was chosen by Jonathan Rea or the two BMW factory drivers.
At the start, Bautista held first position over Bulega without any problems. Behind the best was Locatelli. The Italian Yamaha gained several positions until he managed to take second place over the second division of Aruba.it. Subsequently, Bulega also lost ground to Gardner, with Razgatlioglu, Van der Mark, Andrea Iannone and the Lowes brothers remaining behind.
Midway through the second round Razgatlıoğlu overtook Rea for fifth place and tried to close in on the race lead., and in the peloton BMW lost one of its participants, Scott Redding in the satellite team of Bonovo, due to a fall in the last corner. By the third lap, Bautista was already leading the race and was more than half a second ahead of Gardner. Toprak had already taken third place, ahead of Locatelli.
This created the leading trio of Bautista, Gardner and Toprak. The Turk is the fastest of the three, using his most complex compositions.. With 16 laps to go, the Antalya man managed to overtake the transalpine and take second place, seven tenths behind Bautista. But the #54, of course, didn’t stop there, and one lap later he became the follow-up to Panigale Manchego. At the final corner, Toprak easily overtook Bautista and took the lead.
And while this was happening, it began to rain on the cathedral. Drops began to fall in the first part of the pattern, especially in the second., causing the FIM rules to display a white rain flag. This led to the fact that the leading group did not press so hard, compacting. Toprak gave the advantage to Bautista so he could take the lead, followed by Locatelli, Gardner, Iannone, Van der Mark and Bulega.
12 laps before the finish, falls began due to rain, when the water was already putting a lot of pressure on Assen. Jonathan Rea and Alex Laws fell to the ground, at the same time, Bautista rushed forward, and with him Toprak, who did not want to let him leave. In the subsequent turn, Race Direction already showed the rain flag, given the complexity of the situation.
Increasing rain forced Gardner to take more risks than anyone else.. The Australian overtook Bautista and Toprak to take the lead. Seven people remained in the leading group, including Locatelli, Van der Mark, Iannone and Bulega. It was Locatelli who moved up to second place, following his teammate, with 8 laps remaining.
And it was at that moment that the rain stopped with some force, which is why the track began to dry out. From there the group returned to running close to their best time of 1:35.. Locatelli and Bautista passed Garnder and the defending champion retook the lead with 6 laps remaining. Toprak saw him, wanted to follow his trail, and it was not difficult for him to move from fifth place to second.
So on the next lap The 2021 world champion dedicated himself to supporting the Spaniard, overtaking him at the last corner and inheriting the first position again.. And he, Bautista and Gardner were stuck. In fact, Wayne Gardner’s son took second place, although Alvaro responded easily and took it back.
There were four laps left in the race, but the truth was that there wasn’t much going on ahead. With the best rhythm Razgatlioglu held on well to take victory, his third with BMW and second in the long race., after Race 1 in Montmelo. Bautista finished second despite getting stuck on the penultimate lap, while Gardner finished third.
Behind, Iannone finished fourth, 97 thousandths ahead of Locatelli, with Lowes, Aegerter, Bulega, Van der Mark, Xavi Vierge, Tarran McKenzie, Garrett Gerloff, Michael Ruben Rinaldi, Philip Ettl and Tito Rabat completing the points zone.
In the overall standings, Bautista is the new leader with 123 points, 6 more than Razgatlioglu with 117 and 14 more than Bulega with 109 points.. Alex Laws is fourth in the table with 93 points, while Andrea Locatelli is a distant fifth with 59 points.
Results of the 2024 WSBK Superpole in Assen
Results of the second race of WSBK 2024 in Assen
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