MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

The Tissot Superpole Race started with the pole position restored from yesterday's qualifying. Ten windy laps of Assen on a cold morning, 14ºC air and a 19ºC track would be reduced to just eight laps.

Loris Baz had a technical issue on the way to the grid and didn't make the start. The start was delayed as the track was investigated for oil from Baz's smoking BMW, Baz pointing at flames coming from his bike as he pulled over.

The restart, after a sighting lap and warmup lap, would be reduced to eight laps, like a knife fight in a phone box.

Alvaro Bautista started from a restored pole position, having served his penalty in yesterday's race, ahead of Jonathan Rea and Toprak Razgatlioglu. Jonathan Rea got a good start and beat Bautista to turn one. Lowes nearly took third place from Razgatlioglu, but Razgatlioglu took it back on the brakes, unsurprisingly. Rea started with the harder front tyre. Bautista took the lead into turn seven, after the back straight. Lap two, Bautista tried to escape from Rea and Razgatlioglu, but he couldn't escape, in spite of setting a 1'34.044 fastest lap, less than four hundredths quicker than Rea.

Lap three, Rea and Razgatlioglu stuck with Bautista with Alex Lowes in their wheel tracks. Axel Bassani was a second off the leading four, fending off the Yamahas of Dominique Aegerter and Andrea Locatelli.

At half race distance, four short laps in, Bautista led Rea, Razgatlioglu and Lowes, with seven tenths of a second covering the leading four riders. Two seconds further back, Bassani, Locatelli and Aegerter duelled for fifth place, swapping places throughout lap five.

Jonathan Rea kept within a tenth or two of Bautista throughout lap six with Razgatlioglu a few tenths further back. Andrea Locatelli took fifth place from Axel Bassani as Alvaro Bautista set a 1'33.780 fastest lap, eking out over a tenth of a second from Jonathan Rea.

At the start of the last lap, Bautista had a half second lead over Rea with Razgatlioglu four tenths behind him and Lowes over a second further back. Bautista stretched out his lead and took the victory just under a second ahead of Rea with Razgatlioglu eight tenths further back.

Alvaro Bautista extends his championship lead over Toprak Razgatlioglu to fifty one points with Andrea Locatelli dropping back to fifteen points ahead of Jonathan Rea.

The grid for this afternoon's race hasn't changed much, with the top four taking the same places as their qualifying. Scott Redding drops from fifth to eighth with Locatelli, Bassani and Aegerter leap-frogging him as Xavi Vierge snuck into ninth place.

Results: