Bautista tops opening day of WorldSBK practice at a melting Misano

2023 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship

Round Five – Misano World Circuit “Marco Simoncelli”

A frenetic Friday at Misano gave Ducatisti plenty of reasons to smile plenty on what is home turf for the brand with Alvaro Bautista keen to demonstrate his prowess in front of the Italian crowd. With three wins for Ducati at the track and a frighteningly consistent race pace after a stunning 12-lap run at the start of the session, Bautista remains the favourite for the weekend ahead, but perhaps a big threat will come from the other side of the garage.

Alvaro Bautista – P1

“In FP1, we worked on tyre management using a solution that isn’t exactly my favourite. In the afternoon, however, we went on track with the choice I prefer, and the feeling improved greatly. The feeling is excellent, but it won’t be easy tomorrow because Michael and Toprak have shown a very good race pace“.

In Yamaha blue – for the rest of this year anyway – Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK) came out the blocks fighting on Friday and topped the opening session of the weekend, and it stood until Bautista beat it in FP2 at the end of his first run. Razgatlioglu was a little bit adrift when the temperatures came up in the afternoon and was outside the top three for most of it, but nonetheless finished the day in second.

Toprak Razgatlıoğlu – P2

“Today we are starting very strong, then this afternoon we did the race simulation – 20 laps – and it was not bad, but maybe I am expecting a little better pace. Normally, I am expecting to be faster but I have some small problem on the bike, maybe because the temperature is high, and in the first sectors maybe I made some small mistakes – but I hope tomorrow we are improving. Just I need to improve 0.2, 0.3 to fight with Alvaro. I hope we can improve and fight for the win. In the test, especially I am feeling very good performance – good grip and turning with my R1 – but the track conditions were not like today. Today is unbelievably hot! Tomorrow I hope the temperature is a bit lower, we will improve my bike and I will be ready to fight.”

Taking third at the end of the day and second in FP2, Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Team) is planning to be a star at home. His first outing at Misano in WorldSBK has proved to be a positive one as he blasted up the order on his final flying run, going nearly a second quicker than his FP1 time.

Danilo Petrucci – P3

“Although it’s only Friday and we have the whole weekend ahead of us, I’m very pleased. It’s the kind of result we needed and it boosts our morale. Right from this morning, we worked well and are seeing the steps forward that we took at Mugello. Today I used the new qualifying tyre and my feeling improve. I was also able to be consistent over more laps. From what we’ve seen today, we should be able to put together a good race tomorrow.”

Michael Ruben Rinaldi was in formidable form on Friday where he was second for most of the time before being shuffled down to fourth in the closing minutes of the session.

Michael Rinaldi – P4

“It has been a positive day all in all. We have worked a lot also because, following the rain that fell in the last few days, we found the circuit in different conditions to those of the test. The feeling is good, but it’s clear that, for the moment, we’re missing something to be at Alvaro’s level. Tomorrow morning we will try the new qualifying tyre to see if it will be suitable for the Superpole Race“.

Alex Lowes was top Kawasaki across both sessions on Friday. Lowes demonstrated a strong pace from the start, even if he couldn’t get within half a second of Bautista’s top time.

Alex Lowes – P5

“I really enjoyed riding today. The recent test we did in Jerez was done in quite hot conditions so some of the improvements we made on the front of the bike we kept here. I felt quite good with the front of the bike. Today was probably a bit better than we expected, as we missed the test at this track that some others did. That said, we still we have some work to do. It is not massively clear where we can still improve as everything I wanted the bike to do, it was doing, just a little bit too slow compared to some others. But, I still felt quite good on the bike. I did a lot of laps today and I felt quite happy.”

Garrett Gerloff was quickest BMW in sixth place ahead of Axel Bassani and Dominique Aegerter.

Jonathan Rea was down in eighth position for most of the session and despite a time attack at the end he wasn’t able to improve and will have a little bit of work to do for Saturday and Sunday, placing ninth at the end of day one.

Jonathan Rea – P9

“It was difficult enough to get up to speed today. I still don’t feel that we are maximising the bike right now. We are quite far off and we don’t have much time. The others are much faster right now, so we have work to do. The acceleration towards and then out of the Quercia corner is where I am really struggling. Really just one corner of the track. Tyre consumption wasn’t so bad today but we are just not fast enough. I do not feel super-competitive right now, but it is nice to come here and see so many people on a Friday.”

Andrea Locatelli rounded out the top ten ahead of Scott Redding, Xavi Vierge and Tom Sykes.

Andrea Locatelli – P10

“Day one was not too bad and this morning, the feeling was good – we know where we needed to improve the bike. During the afternoon, the tarmac was really warm so it was more complicated to ride in the hot conditions and more or less, we had a similar problem in the afternoon with my feeling particularly for corner entry. We understand more today what we can do or try to do for this part, because in general and overall the feeling with the base set-up is good. We can be fast if we can just adjust a little bit in some corners and then we will see. We have tomorrow to understand and prepare for the race – it will not be easy because Ducati is so strong, but we try to do our best to have a really good race. It’s important for the championship but also because we are in Italy, so I want to do well. We will enjoy it and see what happens tomorrow.”

It was a difficult opening day for Remy Gardner with the Australian outside the top ten by half-a-second.

Remy Gardner – P17

“FP1 was not too bad, we used the same tyre for the whole session and the feeling was OK. I think the final position didn’t reflect our potential. In the afternoon we tried to make a change in the settings which didn’t pay off in the end, especially considering the hotter conditions. We’ll check with the guys to see how we can improve and I’ll have my head down tomorrow, let’s go for more.”

WorldSBK Combined Friday Practice Times

World Superbike Championship Points

WorldSSP

Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing WorldSSP Team) took top spot by more than half-a-second ahead of his nearest rivals and led an Italian quartet at the head of the WorldSSP field. Bulega had a 0.707s gap to wildcard Corsi in second place. Only Bulega and Corsi lapped Misano on Friday in the 1m37s while Federico Caricasulo (Althea Racing Team) claimed fourth place despite an early crash in FP2.

Yari Montella (Barni Spark Racing Team) was the only rider in the top ten who did not improve their time in FP2 but his FP1 form was good enough to secure him fourth overall.

Fifth place belonged to the most recent WorldSSP race winner, Bahattin Sofuoglu (MV Agusta Reparto Corse), as he continues his impressive run of form while Raffaele De Rosa (Orelac Racing VerdNatura) rounded out the top six.

Oli Bayliss was 14th quickest while countrymen Tom Edwards and Luke Power were 25th and 29th respectively.

WorldSSP Combined Friday Practice Times

World Supersport Championship Points

WorldSSP300

French rider Samuel Di Sora (ProDina Kawasaki Racing) topped the times with his FP1 time good enough for top spot in the combined classification ahead of home hero Matteo Vannucci (AG Motorsport Italia Yamaha).

Wildcard Bruno Ieraci (ProDina Kawasaki Racing), returning to WorldSSP300, claimed third place on Friday as he set a 1’49.915s in FP1 for his best time on Friday.

Another Italian rider made it into the top four as Kevin Sabatucci (Team Flembbo – PI Performances) secured fourth place on Friday as he returns from injury. His best time was a 1’50.059s to finish ahead of Humberto Maier (Yamaha MS Racing/AD78 Latin America Team) in fifth, with the Brazilian having limited running in FP2 due to a crash at Turns 5-6 which brought out the red flags; he was taken to the medical centre for a check-up following the crash.

Jose Luis Perez Gonzalez (Accolade Smrz Racing BGR) rounded out the top six, just over half a second down on Di Sora’s time.

WorldSSP300 Combined Friday Practice Times

World Supersport 300 Championship Points

WorldSBK Misano Schedule
(AEST)

2023 FIM Superbike World Championship Calendar
Date	Circuit	WSBK	WSSP600	WSSP300
24-26 Feb	Phillip Island	X	X
3-5 Mar	Mandalika	X	X
21-23 Apr	Assen	X	X	X
5-7 May	Catalunya	X	X	X
2-4 Jun	Misano	X	X	X
30 Jun-02 Jul	Donington Park	X	X
14-16 Jul	Imola	X	X	X
28-30 Jul	Autodrom Most	X	X	X
8-10 Sep	Magny-Cours	X	X	X
22-24 Sep	Aragón	X	X	X
29-Sep-01 Oct	Algarve	X	X	X
13-15 Oct	San Juan Villicum	X	X