I couldn’t pull away from the group and on lap 8 when Guintoli passed me I was just going to sit behind him for a few laps to see what he could do. Smrz also came by at the start of lap 11 and that was as far back as I wanted to be in the group because I didn’t want to let anybody get away.
I was comfortably following Smrz and Guintoli when Smrz made a dodgy move and clipped the back of Sylvain and took them both down. I was quite lucky not to hit either of them and snapped on the brakes quick to avoid Sylvain’s bike and locked the front wheel for a split second.
Surprisingly, nobody past me and I led Ballerini and Giansanti for the next 5 laps doing mid 57s but not pulling anything on them. With 5 laps to go I let Ballerini past to see what he had but he couldn’t lead. The pace dropped from mid 57s to mid 58s as soon as he was at the front.
With 3 laps to go I went back to the front again and purposely didn’t push as hard as I could to try and lead them into a false sense of security, quite tactical! I did Ballerini’s pace that lap and did a mid 58. With two laps to go I put the hammer down to try and catch them out and did two laps in the low 57s.
At the start of the last lap I had 0.4secs over Andrea and was giving him no chance to pass. I made a mistake mid way through the last lap which cost me a few tenths and I was kicking myself for it, but pushed hard right up to the flag and got 10th. I was happy with that because it’s nice to beat a couple of Italians on their home soil and also it was a good hard fight - I was bearing the war scars after!
There was a big black rubber mark just above my right knee slider, marks on the front of my bike and - on the rear where the bike goes on the stand - the metal lugs that the stand goes under were snapped off, leaving a big hole in the carbon fibre swing arm. The carbon cover over the exhaust was also broken! Proper carnage!
