Immense Danilo Petrucci! Against all odds, the rider from Terni is at the top of the timesheets on Friday in the Portugal round, the seventh round of the Superbike World Championship. On top of that, with a private bike, the Ducati of the Barni team, and therefore also the fastest of the “independents”. An exceptional performance from him, when everyone expected to find Toprak Razgatlıoğlu as leader, who has been calling the shots for several races on the official BMW. Instead, the Turk, who had dominated FP1, was the victim of technical problems twice and towards the end of FP2 he was overtaken by Petrucci, incredibly competitive on this track.
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Three in the blink of an eye
The gap is minimal, 0”096, but it is strange to see the Turk preceded by two other riders. “Razga” was unable to improve on the time of the first session and ended the day in third place, also overtaken by Alvaro Bautista. The Spaniard arrived in Portugal with a grudge and the official Ducati is pushing hard: towards the end of the day he ended up on the ground on turn 11, fortunately without consequences, but he has the second best overall performance at just 0”023 from the top.
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Bulega, technical problems overcome
His teammate Nicolò Bulega also did well: after the technical problems that made him miss all of FP1, the men from the Aruba team decided to replace the engine and in the end, despite only having one session to set up the bike, the rider from Emilia achieved the fourth best overall performance, 0.130 seconds from the top.
Another surprise comes from Dominique Aegerter, a rider of undoubted value but rather in difficulty in the last races. This time instead the Swiss has achieved the fifth time and is also the first of the Yamaha riders, immediately ahead of Jonathan Rea who in turn rides an Iwata bike, but it is the official one. Jonny seems to be entering the game and the time obtained in the second round of tests is slower than Petrucci’s by just 0”255.
On a track that seems favorable to the BMWs, Michael van der Mark, Razgatlıoğlu’s teammate, fell twice but finished the day in seventh position with a time of 1’40”995; ahead of Garrett Gerloff, also the victim of a technical problem, Alex Lowes and Michael Ruben Rinaldi who seems to be finding the right balance with the Ducati of the Motocorsa team.
Further back was Axel Bassani with the second official Kawasaki, 14th, Andrea Iannone, 15th, and Andrea Locatelli, who fell in the afternoon and is currently only 17th.
These are the first six of Friday
1. Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Team) 1’40.681
2. Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) +0.023
3. Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) +0.102
4. Nicolò Bulega (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) +0.130
5. Dominique Aegerter (GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team) +0.140
6. Jonathan Rea (Pata Prometeon Yamaha) +0.255
