Ducati 1-2-3-4 in WorldSBK FP2 at Phillip Island

MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship 2023

Round one – Phillip Island

World Supercar FP2

The track temperature of nearly 50 degrees did not stop Alvaro Bautista from surpassing the 1m30,927 mark from the very beginning in FP2 to set a new standard for the day.

However, things did not look easy as Bautista continued his long journey with the Ducati sliding and sliding all over the place beneath the diminutive Spaniard. However, he only continued to spin for 1 minute and 31 seconds and seems to be in a class of his own in these hot conditions.

It was a Ducati 1-2-3 for most of the FP2 session. Alvaro Bautista leads Michael Rinaldi and Philipp Oettl. Bautista and Rinaldi are two of the few riders that actually proved to be faster this afternoon than the more exciting FP1 session.

Andrea Locatelli was the first to split the Ducati trifecta, advancing to P3 with 18 minutes left in the 45-minute section.

With 15 minutes left of the session, Jonathan Rea is dropping to 16th place.

Remy Gardner was only in the top 10 for most of the session and improved to P8 when the clock turned 14 minutes but still 2/10 of his best FP1.

The fire went out on Rinaldi’s V4 R as he came out of the pit for his final run and had to push his machine back to his bunker garage, which luckily was closest to the pit exit. .

With just over eight minutes left, Danilo Petrucci once again took a 1-2-3 lead on Ducati after pushing Locatelli back into fourth place. Dominique Aegerter then pushed Locatelli back into fifth place to be the fastest Yamaha of the session. However, it wasn’t long before Gerloff stole that fourth spot from Aegerter the next time around. Locatelli then went down at the age of ten while trying to improve his position.

With seven minutes remaining, Bautista was back with new rubber and going faster immediately. 1m30,623 then back it up with 1m30,929.

His Aruba Ducati teammate went out just in time to do another lap and Rinaldi was actually faster than Bautista in the first part but the lap was way ahead of him.

Philipp Oettl then rose to third to push Petrucci back to P4 and when the checkered flag appeared, it was Ducati 1-2-3-4 in this second training session. It’s clear that when track conditions are hot, Ducati has a distinct advantage, whether it’s through sheer mechanical grip or better electronic strategies I don’t know, but something is definitely at work. beneficial action for them.

The yellow flag then spoiled the last attempt of many racers who had their laps canceled, including Remy Gardner, who finished in tenth place.

Scott Redding didn’t spin the wheel until the dying minutes of this FP2 session. The team was busy trying to find some mechanical gremlin lurking in the BMW while all Scott could do was sit in his leather-covered bunker box hoping that they would. They did in the end but that only really gave the Briton time to knock down the bike and himself and he failed to make an impression on the timesheets.

At combined times, Bautista leads Locatelli and Lecuona, both of the latter pair setting their best times this morning.

World Superbike FP2 times

World Superbike’s sixth combined time

Phillip Island World Fixtures SBK/ASBK