The Assen round of the WSB championship was forced to reschedule races this weekend due to snowy conditions on Saturday. As a result, the sprint race was cancelled, and both regular Race 1 and Race 2 were held on Sunday.
Despite the efforts to blunt the performance of his Ducati, Alvaro Bautista again dominated this round with convincing wins in both races. He has now broken a record set by Neil Hodgson – who won 9 straight races at the start of a WSB series years ago. Bautista is now 11 for 11 in race wins to start the 2019 campaign!
If Bautista continued the same story line, behind him things finally changed. Defending champ Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki) had finished second behind Bautista in every race prior to this round, but he was beaten to that position by Michael van der Mark (Yamaha) in Race 2 this weekend. Rea finished third in Race 2, but finished in his customary second position in Race 1 … just ahead of van der Mark.
You will find full results for Race 1 here and Race 2 here. For additional details and points, visit the official WSB site.
See more of MD’s great photography:
I’m confused. How can Bautista be 11 for 11 race wins when there has only been 4 rounds with a total of 8 races?
and 3 sprint races, 1 was cancelled
You could hear Bautista making raspberry sounds as he took the checkered flag in both races lol
NOW do you believe it’s Bautista that is making the difference and not the Ducati?
No, I believe it’s Bautista AND the Ducati that’s making the difference.
Yes, with every race that Bautista dominates, and the other riders on Ducati V4’s flounder, I believe Bautista is the deciding factor.
Now they’ll have to mandate that Alvaro run Enduro tires so the other riders can keep up.
I like it! Or maybe those 1940’s style Firestone tires (or lookalikes) so beloved by custom cafe and scrambler builders.