Bautista is first half a second from the fastest lap of the Romagna track and precedes Razgatlioglu and an excellent Petrucci. Rinaldi is fourth ahead of Lowes, Gerloff and Bassani
June 2, 2023
Who starts well……..after what we saw in the tests held about three weeks ago right here at Misano, Alvaro Bautista’s first time (1’33”825) at the end of today’s free practice it doesn’t surprise us at all, but to see the Spaniard less than half a second from the fastest lap of the trackwhich belongs to him since last season, is a really bad sign for all his opponents.
Bautista was the fastest in the flying lap, but above all he proved to have a consistently fast race pace as always. For the races of the next two days he is obviously the favourite, even if this morning he was at the top of the standings Toprak Razgatlioglu, who together with Michael Ruben Rinaldi seems to have a pace that could give the Ducati Spaniard a hard time. The Yamaha Turkish rider did not improve in the afternoon but the time set in FP1 (1’34”154) confirmed him in second position, 0.000000s behind Bautista.
Nice to finally see Danilo Petrucci in the upper parts of the standings. The Barni Racing rider set a fastest lap in the final stages of FP2, after a few laps in Razgatlioglu’s slipstream and with his 1’34”276 he preceded Rinaldi by seven thousandths. The Ducati Italian has been consistently in the upper reaches of the standings, including second place in the morning. Alex Lowes closes in fifth position, first of the Kawasaki riders more than six tenths behind Alvaro, while his titled teammate Jonathan Rea is only ninthwith a time of 888 thousandths higher than that of the Ducati leader.
Jonny is trying everything, in an attempt to reduce the gap to the world champion, but at least as far as today is concerned, the results don’t prove him right. If he is amazed to see Lowes in front of Rea, he is even more amazed to see Garrett Gerloff first among the BMW drivers. The excellent sixth place of the American is the counterpart the eleventh by Scott Redding, the thirteenth by prodigal son Tom Sykes and the sixteenth by Loris Baz. Axel Bassani closes seventh improving his 7th lap time in the afternoon. The rider from Veneto did not make it to the podium at the Misano World Circuit and hopes to break the spell over the weekend.
Despite a crash at the start of FP2 Dominique Aegerter closes in eighth position, ahead of the aforementioned Rea and Andrea Locatelli, fifth in FP1 but unable to improve in the afternoon session. The two Hondas of Xavi Vierge, twelfth and Iker Lecuona fifteenth, remain anonymous, but Remy Gardner is even more disappointing, only seventeenth, followed a few tenths away by rookie Bradley Ray with the Motoxracing R1. The other Italians: nineteenth Gabriele Ruiu ahead of Lorenzo Baldassarri. Twenty-third place for rookie Luca Vitali, who precedes Isaac Vinales and Ryo Mizuno, last with the Honda Petronas MIE.
