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Bassani Secures His Best bimota Result So Far
The bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team took part in two WorldSBKraces on the final day of action at Portimao, with the single best resultcoming from Axel Bassani. He fought his way to seventh in a red-flagged andrestarted Race Two, which was finally held over a shorter-than-expected 11laps.
The opening race of the final day at the second FIM SuperbikeChampionship round in Portimao was a ten-lap Superpole ‘sprint’. After someintense morning action in warm weather conditions Bassani was 11th and histeam-mate Alex Lowes 13th.
Axel made up some positions from his 14th place grid spot butLowes had to work particularly hard to get up to 13th at the flag, havingstarted from the final place on the grid once again after not being able to seta time in Superpole qualifying on Saturday 29 March.
The second Sunday race, and the final one in 2025 for theWorldSBK riders at the 4.592km long Autodromo Internacional do Algarve, wasstopped at half race distance shortly after a rider fell and the trackconditions were potentially compromised.
Instead of the scheduled 20-lap battle, Race Two at Portimaowill go down in the official record as a stand-alone race of 11 laps induration, but with full points awarded to the top 15 finishers.
Bassani and his team found an even better feel from his KB998Rimini machine in Race Two, and after starting from eighth place on the grid hewas able to fight hard and secure seventh place - which is his best result sofar as a bimota rider.
Lowes had an unlucky restart after the red flag, trying arevised set-up but falling on lap one, at T12. He was unable to restart andleft Portugal without adding to his championship points score from the openinground.
In the overall ranking after two rounds and six races, Bassani’stwo points scoring rides at Portimao put him ninth overall, with 30 points.Alex is 13th, with 19 points to his credit.
Next up for the newest factory team in the WorldSBK championshipwill be an old favourite, the Assen round in the Netherlands, which will hostthe series between 11-13 April. This weekend will take place very shortly afterthe customer version of the bimota KB998 Rimini will be available, from April9, in European bimota dealers.
Alex Lowes, stated: “We tried some things with the bike today,and I felt quite good. In the last race I made some positions before the redflag. We had a brief time to change the bike set-up again on the front. On thefirst lap of the restart I was in race mode, and made a couple of good passeson Aegerter and Montella. On the apex of T12 on the first lap, on full power, Iclosed the front - which I didn’t really expect because it is not a ‘normal’place to crash. Maybe I was trying a bit too hard because we were startingfurther up the grid in the restart. Although we have had no results over theweekend my pace was not that bad. Maybe an opportunity was there and I wastrying too hard. We have to learn from this weekend, our first one back inEurope with the bimota. Axel did a fantastic job in the last race and he wasimproving all weekend. Congratulation to him and his guys and I am sure thedata will be useful for all the team. We will take the positive points and comeback stronger in Assen.”
Axel Bassani, stated: “Today was quite good for my feeling withthe bike, but when I got near the top ten it was really difficult for me to tryto overtake because the race pace for everyone was quite similar. It wasimpossible for me to take the slipstream on the straight and attack, but it wasquite a consistent Superpole Race. In Race Two, in the first part before thered flag, I was struggling a little bit with the front. After the restart itwas immediately better and I was able to push like I wanted. I made a mistakein T1 and lost about a second and a half, but afterwards I recovered. I had areally good battle with Petrucci, which I enjoyed a lot, but it was not funnyon the straight with him. But, the rest of the track was good. We leavePortimao with a good feeling, and we understood something on the bike. I hopewe can start with this feeling in Assen next time.”
