Bautista is immediately fast and precedes Lowes and Rea. Sesto Locatelli ahead of Bassani. Eleventh Petrucci. Rinaldi stopped by a technical problem. Fifteen riders in one second
April 21, 2023
Shafts – Bautista immediately makes it clear his intentions and closes in head the first two free practice sessions held today at Assen in the Netherlands, in the third round of the Superbike World Championship, in one day cool and windyunder partly cloudy skies.
Nothing was won today, but (the apparent) ease with which the Spaniard has toured demonstrates that his Panigale V4 is already ready and that Alvaro has a very fast race pace. The Spaniard from Ducati had finished at first place also FP1’s this morningbut in the afternoon has further lowered his best lap, and with the time of 1’34”316 he preceded the Kawasaki duo made up of Alex Lowes and Jonathan Rea in the cumulative of the two sessions.
The six-times world champion was also fast in the morning, while his teammate improved by a second at the start of the second round, only surpassed by the 2022 world champion in the finale.
On the runway where Rea won by ben 17 volte the Ninja seems to have fixed some of the problems that were dramatically highlighted in the two non-European away matches, but you have to wait for the matches to be sure.
The fourth and fifth place of the Team GRT Yamaha rider duo, with Dominique Aegerter and Remy Gardner, are surprising. In Assen, the house of the three tuning forks hasn’t won since 2009 (Ben Spies) but the Swiss and the Australian, making their debut with the R1 on this track, are managed to do better than the two officers Andrea Locatelli and Toprak Razgatlioglueighth and tenth, respectively. The Turkish rider is almost eight tenths from the first position, but tomorrow he will always be able to pull the rabbit out of his hat.
Well begun is half done e Axel Bassani started very well this third round, closing the two free practice sessions in seventh place, six tenths behind Bautista. The Motocorsa rider has never achieved great results on this track, but given his performance in practice tomorrow and Sunday he could dispel tradition.
Il host Michael Van der Mark brings up the BMW that in addition to the sixth place of the Dutch can also boast the ninth of Garrett Gerloff, while Scott Redding is only twelfth. Loris Baz, the second driver of the Bonovo BMW team contested both sessions but his foot injured in Mandalika is still sore and finished eighteenth.
Rea
Eleventh position for Daniel Petrucci more than seven tenths from the top, while staying at Ducati, bad luck rages against him Michael Ruben Rinaldi, who did only four laps in FP2, due to a technical problem (it seems) to the radiator of his V4. Once the problem had been sorted out, Rinaldi returned to the track, but did not finish a single lap as the problem reappeared. A day to forget, which we hope will not affect the outcome of the Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team rider’s weekend.
After what they had done in testing, the two Honda riders they seemed to be among the protagonists in Holland, but this was not the case. Iker Lecuona finished thirteenth, just ahead of Xavi Vierge. Fifteenth place for Philipp Oettl, the last rider to keep the disadvantage over Bautista within second. Twentieth place for Lorenzo Baldassarri and twenty-third for the wild card Gabriele Ruiu.
Lowes
