Top Five Finish For BbKRT Ride...

In the first race of the Assen WorldSBK race weekend, Alex Lowes finished fifth, and his team-mate Axel Bassani 12th, in a race that was started in dry conditions, but featured a slight fall of rain for a time, before it dried out again as the end of the race approached.

Before the first 21 laps of the weekend got underway, Superpole Qualifying took place in the morning. Lowes would earn a second row grid spot for qualifying in sixth place with his bimota KB998 Rimini machine. Bassani had a more challenging Superpole experience and ended up 17th on the grid.

The truly historic 4.542km long Assen circuit provided a dry surface at the start of Race One, but the arrival of very light rain just after the midpoint caused some periods of concern for all the riders.

Lowes had a moment of drama when he and Alvaro Bautista made contact on the main straight, with Alex losing a winglet from his machine’s bodywork. Despite this scare, Lowes rode to a strong fifth place, in an eventually solitary race, finishing with a cushion of five seconds over the rider following him home in sixth position.

Bassani worked hard to overcome his sixth row starting position. In a race with no crashers and no retirees, the Italian rider moved up to 12th place at the flag, earning more valuable championship points.

Assen will host two more races for Alex and Axel to compete in, on Sunday, 19 April. The ten-lap Tissot Superpole Race starts the race action on the last day, and then a second 21-lap Race Two will complete the weekend for BbKRT.

Alex Lowes, stated: “I did as well as I could, honestly. I felt quite good in the race, and the pace was a lot faster than our long run on Friday. I enjoyed the first race, and thank you to the guys because the bike was good. When it started to rain, I probably rolled off a bit too much, but we will try again tomorrow. We have some really strong parts of the track, so let’s see how we go on Sunday.”

Axel Bassani, stated: “It was a difficult Superpole Qualifying session today, and we started the race from P17. We tried to cover as many positions as possible. In the end, we finished in P12, so we improved and got some points. Now we are working for tomorrow, and we will try to take better results. But for today, this was the maximum I was able to do with my bike. For sure, we will push, and we will see what we can do tomorrow.”