Boughen and Ducati make it two out of two!

VRX Dirt Store Ducati Race Team and rookie Ashton Boughen made it two wins out of two at Terenzano on Saturday to continue an extraordinary start to the FIM Flat Track World Championship campaign.

18-year-old Boughen, who has stunned the establishment with the speed in which he has adapted to a new discipline, went through the card in Round 2 with wins in his four qualifying races before a spectacular effort from the back in the Final.

Having added to his victory at Roden earlier this month, Boughen now holds a six-point lead in the Championship standings, whilst team-mate Tim Neave is in a three-way tie for third overall after a strong fifth-place finish in Italy. And it also means that Ducati, in their first year in the competition, lead the manufacturer’s standings with a six-point advantage over Zaeta.

Both Ducati riders were prominent throughout the proceedings with Boughen showing impressive speed to romp to a string of wins in the qualifiers.

There was a clear statement of intent when he stormed around the outside in the early stages to finish ahead of Gerard Bailo (Zaeta) and defending World Champion Ervin Krajcovic (KTM) in Heat 4 as three of the top riders clash

In a terrific Heat 8 Boughen started from the back row of the grid but he made into second place on lap two before reeling in Ondrej Svedik (KTM), dramatically diving inside the Czech rider on the last bend to win by less than five-hundredths of a second.

Then in Heat 11 he was again on the back row, but a superb outside line saw him go past his rivals and hit the front by the time they went into the second lap.

Neave also made it safely through the qualifiers and secured a place on the front row of the grid for the Final, starting with second places behind Krajcovic and Svedik, before he won Heat 9 and finished third in Heat 12.

That meant Boughen had first pick of starting position for the 12-rider, 12-lap Final and he selected gate 5 whilst Neave, with fourth pick, went for gate 3. It turned out to be Boughen’s toughest race of the day as his outside run was blocked in the early stages with Bailo and Krajcovic contesting the lead, whilst Neave stormed inside Boughen at the end of lap one to go into third place. Bailo moved ahead after three laps of close racing against Krajcovic, whilst Boughen making it inside Neave on lap five as the Ducati duo also had to fend off pressure from Jack Bell. The leaders then delayed each other with a lap six battle which brought Boughen right into contention, and having gone for the tighter inside line he rode a sensational seventh lap to get past both Krajcovic and Bailo in one move on turns three and four. The top five were now clear, with the main action taking place for runners-up spot as Bailo and Krajcovic continued their race-long scrap, and Boughen raced clear to win by nearly a full second whilst Nevae just missed out on re-passing Bell for fourth place.

Ashton Boughen
"I’m just having fun riding my bike and racing, and the results have come. I know I can ride any bike, I can do anything on a bike – it’s my life, I grew up racing bikes and it just shows. 

I’m in a good team, the best team, and we’re all working together. Tim and I are racing against each other, but we still work together and it’s a perfect set-up. This is only my fifth go on a Flat Track bike, I’ve done no training, just racing and having fun!”

Rob Painter, VRX Management Ltd MD
“I’m really proud of the whole team today, a fantastic performance from everyone. We are starting to build some momentum, which is excellent considering the limited time we’ve had.

Tim put in the fastest lap of the round which shows again that we’ve got good pace, and Ashton’s fastest lap came in the Final which pleases me as we spoke a lot today about pushing at the right time.

We didn’t make very good starts in the Final, which was a shame as we had the capability to finish 1-2 but unfortunately found ourselves in traffic, and that can make it hard to push as you have riders all around you.“Ashton managed to use his Speedway experience and find some grip down low on turn 3, and that made all the difference so he could get to the front.

Outstanding from everyone today and Ashton’s performance was close to perfect. He is showing the level of ability we knew he had, and the reason that we bought him into Flat Track World Championship.”

The series now takes a break of one month before a vital double of two rounds in two weeks, starting at Teterow in Germany on June 27 before moving on to Donji Kraljevec (Gorican) in Croatia on July 4.