The Pirelli Dutch Round of the FIM World Superbike Championship was dominated entirely by Ducati, not only in the premier class, but also in WorldSSP. Álvaro Bautista (Aruba.It Racing – Ducati) won all the Superbike races of the weekend and Nicolò Bulega (Aruba Racing WorldSSP Team) did the same in Supersport. Holding the Yamaha colours high was Humberto Maier (Yamaha MS Racing/AD78 Latin America Team) who won the second WorldSSP330 race.
Throughout the weekend, more or less all of the solutions were used that Pirelli chose for this round. This demonstrates both that the selection was correct and that all the tyres, on some tracks and with some weather conditions, can be very close to one another in terms of performance thanks to the vast range of use and the versatility achieved.
All the solutions chosen in the races demonstrated solid performance
“Assen was an interesting round for Pirelli. Practically all the solutions we had selected for this round were used in the race and, even more importantly, they guaranteed outstanding and extremely consistent performance in every case. We saw that the SCX B0800 development tyre was preferred in the long races compared with the standard, but the latter was back to being the protagonist in the Superpole Race, probably because over a short distance, it is able to guarantee a slightly better performance peak than the development solution. Just like the rear, the SC1 and SC2 also guaranteed similar performance at the front, thanks to the development work done last year on the SC2 which the riders now use much more often than in the past. In Supersport, the larger 125/70 size already used in WorldSBK doesn’t seem to have garnered much favour for the moment, but it’s still early to make a final assessment and the upcoming rounds will afford more opportunities to evaluate its performance as compared with the 120/70. At the rear, the low temperatures allowed the standard SC0 to steal the spotlight from the SCX. The Ducati riders and bikes have become the absolute reference points in their respective championships. Congratulations to them for the test of strength demonstrated from the beginning of the year.”
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- In the Superpole Race, shortened to 8 laps due to a technical problem, Álvaro Bautista (Aruba.It Racing – Ducati), Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) and Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK) remained the undisputed protagonists. Unlike yesterday, today the Spanish rider started from pole position and maintained the race lead from start to finish. Just like in Race 1, he finished ahead of Rea and Razgatlioglu. The Ducati rider used the SC1 front and SCX rear tyre, whereas Rea and Razgatlioglu opted for the SCX-A (B0800 specification) at the rear combined with the SC2 at the front in the Kawasaki rider’s case and the SC1 for the Yamaha rider. In general, the standard SCX was the most used rear solution, whereas at the front, the SC1 and SC2 split the grid equally.
- In Race 2, the rear SCX-A solution (B0800 specification) took back the spotlight as the undisputed star of the show, garnering favour from most of the riders. At the front, on the other hand, the number of riders using the standard SC2 Just a few laps in, the race lost one of its protagonists: Jonathan Rea, who had been battling for the lead with Bautista up to that point, crashed out and was forced to retire. At that point, only Toprak Razgatlioglu was left to threaten his leadership, but he was powerless against Bautista’s super power. This gave the latter yet another win in the third and final race of the weekend, finishing ahead of Yamaha factory riders Razgatlioglu and Andrea Locatelli.
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- In Race 2, tyre choice was much more uniform with respect to Race 1. At the rear, all the riders used the standard SC0 due to the low temperatures, and at the front, the vast majority opted for the standard SC1. This was also the choice of the three riders who finished on the podium.
- Nicolò Bulega (Aruba Racing WorldSSP Team) was once again uncatchable for the rest, taking home a magnificent brace on Dutch soil. Finishing behind him were Stefano Manzi (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha) and Federico Caricasulo (Althea Racing Team), rounding out an all-Italian podium. Bulega also did the race fast lap on his second time around with a time of 1’ 37,697.
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