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Strong Final Day Results For Both BbKRT Riders
At the end of an often overheated Motorland Aragon race weekend, bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team riders Alex Lowes and Axel Bassani each secured highly creditable results in both the 10-lap Superpole Race and a final 18-lap Race 2. Lowes scored a best of fourth place, with Bassani recording a weekend personal best of fifth.
The bimota KB998 Rimini WorldSBK riding duo left the sixth round of the FIM WorldSBK championship having scored good points in every race, maximizing their potential after a very intense weekend of hot weather conditions and ultra-competitive race action.
In the 10-lap Tissot-Superpole Race, Lowes started from fifth place and finished in the same position. Bassani started 10th but moved up to sixth at the flag, just over half a second behind his teammate.
With air temperatures of 85°F and track temperatures almost topping out at 120°F for Race 2, which was started at 3:30 pm instead of Saturday’s Race 1 launch at 2:00 pm, Lowes and Bassani set about their final Motorland tasks with relish.
Lowes knew that a Top 4 would be his realistically best possible result, and he duly delivered once again, making the bimota KB998 Rimini the first non-Ducati machine home after 18 laps of the impressive 3.15-mile-long Motorland Aragon circuit.
Bassani started the second long race at Aragon from sixth place on the grid, due to his sixth-place result in the earlier Superpole Race. He improved by one place to take fifth, and he was less than two seconds behind Lowes at the finish.
The more than solid points scores for each rider in Spain ensured that Lowes would leave in overall fourth place, with 132 championship points. Bassani's triple-point-scoring weekend results now put him seventh overall, with 109 points.
Now that the Motorland weekend is complete, and with the first half of the season, the next round will be held at bimota and Bassani’s home venue, the Misano World Circuit ‘Marco Simoncelli.’ Race weekend will be held from May 12-14, at what is always a highly popular milestone on the WorldSBK campaign trail.
“I really enjoyed riding the bike today. On Friday, Axel was quite a bit faster than me, and he has been riding great all weekend. So I had to really focus on where I could improve. We have kept the bike quite consistent since Saturday morning, and I felt like I did a good job on Saturday and Sunday. I could never improve enough to challenge the podium riders, including my brother Sam [Lowes], as they were quite a lot faster. So fourth position was, realistically, the maximum we could do, and we managed to achieve it on Race 1 and Race 2. I am really happy with that. Of course I want to improve, and I would have liked to have got a bit closer to Sam, if not the guys in the front. I am sure I can ride a bit better. In the last corner, I am really bad compared to Axel, but the bike is the same. So there are certain parts of the track where I can improve. We need to keep improving our project, which I think we are doing. This year has been tough, but our attitude has been good inside the team.”
- Alex Lowes
“If I had to choose my best race today, then I am happier with the Superpole Race because, usually, I am not really good in that situation. But we made a really strong Superpole Race today, and I had a nice battle in the first laps with Alex. I enjoyed the ‘sprint’ race a lot, and the pace was strong. In the final long race, the bike started to work in a good way, but I had to take some laps to overtake Alberto Surra. Once I did that, I tried to impose my pace without pushing too much, so that I did not make any mistakes. We finished in eighth, sixth, and fifth positions at Motorland, so we finished the weekend in a positive way. I have to be happy with that, and also I am happy with the work the team did, because this weekend has been very difficult. It was really hot, especially for all the guys working inside the pitbox, so I really appreciate that.”
- Axel Bassani
