The Supersport world championship is going more and more in the direction of Dominique Aegerter, who also in Barcelona is the master and imposes himself in both races. The Swiss, the great ruler of last season, is reconfirming this year and is doing it with impressive solidity and effectiveness. The Catalan round was not an easy one, in which a red flag in Race 1 and a long one in Race 2 forced him to sweat the victories, which however came to further consolidate his leadership in the standings.
With this new double, the fifth of the season, the Ten Kate rider flies to 336 points, and shows himself to be the driver to beat in this intense 2022. Yes, because when there are four rounds left at the end of the season, the points that divide Aegerter from Lorenzo Baldassarri are 36. For the Italian of the Evan Bros team it is not an easy margin to recover, considering the strength of his opponent. Dominique doesn’t really make a mistake, he is always relentless and the only real mistake he made was in Most, when the simulation of the injury precluded the possibility of putting another 25 points in his pocket for the expulsion from Race 2 (here the report of Aegerter’s gesture).
However, Baldassarri tried to redeem the mistake of last round at Magny-Cours where he slipped into the heat of wanting to take his rival: in Race 1 he managed to conquer the second position, still paying almost three and a half seconds from the Swiss. In Race 2 he remained at the foot of the podium, after a great fight up to the checkered flag with Can Oncu, Stefano Manzi and Aegerter himself. The bearer Evan Bros has a difficult task, on paper 36 points are not many and with four remaining rounds 400 points remain at stake. However, with a practically perfect Aegerter, it is very hard to make up a gap that is never too wide, but it is just the right thing to make the Swiss feel relatively comfortable.
Despite this, Aegerter does not manage and goes on the attack, knowing that he has more than his opponents. He and Baldassarri make a clear difference on all the others, because the third in the standings, Can Oncu, is at 171 points, while the first two have crossed the hill of 300 points (a round figure for Baldassarri at the end of the Barcelona round). The consistency of the first two is what he is paying for this season, but Aegerter’s is proving to be really winning (in every sense).
A race like the one we saw in Barcelona on Sunday is not enough for Can Oncu, out of the game but still very combative on the track. The show offered at Montmelo is proof that, net of Aegerter’s evident superiority, the fight is really intense. The protagonist of the Catalan weekend is also Stefano Manzi, author of an impeccable Race 2 that allowed him to get on the podium. The only flaw of the Dynavolt Triumph standard bearer was pinching the green at Turn 9 on the last lap, a maneuver that forced him to give up second position to the Turkish, thus closing in third place.
Who is missing a bit from the roll in the Barcelona round is Nicolò Bulega. After a great start to the season, the Ducati rider had a downturn and at Montmelo he collected only two points with 14th place in Race 2, a small consolation after the crash in the first heat that forced him to retire. However, Bulega remains in fourth position in the world championship, at 170 points, only one less than Can Oncu. The fight is therefore on two fronts: the first is the duel for the title, the second is to decree “the first of the others”.
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