There couldn’t have been a better conclusion to the Assen round for Ducati, which closes Race 2 on a high note by celebrating its 400th Superbike victory. This historic round figure bears the signature of Alvaro Bautista, who also achieved his 40th success in the world championship for production-derived derivatives. The reigning champion triumphed relentlessly, after having dominated from the lights to the checkered flag and tamed a newfound Toprak Razgatlioglu.
It seemed like a decidedly fought race in the first laps, but as always Bautista manages to pull out the margin that allows him to win with a gap, and also in the final heat of the weekend he passes under the checkered flag with an advantage of almost 4 seconds over the Turkish rider. Razgatlioglu improves his feeling and redeems himself from a complicated weekend, but he can’t help but finish in second position, despite attempts to attack the championship leader.
Yamaha, however, can celebrate because it brings both factory riders to the podium: Andrea Locatelli hits third place in Assen, returning to the top 3 after a period of fasting. The Yamaha rider manages to seize the opportunity presented to him after Jonathan Rea’s crash. Sunday afternoon to forget for the six-time world champion, who slips when he is third and chases Bautista and Razgatlioglu. With today’s zero, the Kawasaki rider falls back to fifth position in the general classification, 107 lengths behind the leader and reigning champion.
Rea loses a position in the general standings to Axel Bassani, protagonist of a great duel in the final stages of Race 2 with Dominique Aegerter. The two come to loggerheads at the last chicane, where the Motocorsa rider gets the better of it but has to give up his position due to having gone to cut the corner after a contact. Thus it is the Swiss of the GRT team who conquers the fourth position, obtaining his best result in Superbike.
Aegerter is thus the best of the independents, depriving Bassani of the “hat-trick”. The Ducati rider is fifth and disappointed. Axel precedes the other GRT rider, Remy Gardner, sixth but far behind. Scott Redding pays for a delay of more than 13 seconds, but brings BWM into the top ten positions and is seventh. The Briton is the only official rider to cross the finish line: in fact, Michael van der Mark’s home weekend ends in the gravel, protagonist of an impressive highside.
Danilo Petrucci climbs up the slope, managing to defend himself in the tussle with his Panigale V4R of the Barni team. The rider from Terni is eighth and precedes Alex Lowes. The Kawasaki Englishman grabs the ninth position after slipping in the alignment lap. Returning to the pits to fix the bike, he did not line up on the starting grid, but started his race starting from the pits. With a good comeback he manages to get back into the top 10, which is closed by Michael Ruben Rinaldi, still delayed but tenth at the finish line.
Philipp Oettl improved, closing the Assen round with an 11th place, ahead of the BMW of Garrett Gerloff, while his teammate Loris Baz slipped. HRC disaster in this Race 2, with both factory riders on the ground. Hafizh Syahrin is sensationally the best of the Honda representatives, in 14th position. So the Italians: Lorenzo Baldassarri is 13th, while Gabriele Ruiu closes the group in 19th position.
