The Superbike World Championship has already had its official start and right away with “new faces” standing out: Andrea Locatelli led FP1, but it was Alex Lowes who stood out in FP2 with the best time of the day.
The first session was immediately marked by raindrops and GPS issues with the motorcycles of some riders, such as Nicolò Bulega and Andrea Iannone, also with Scott Redding, who also had a technical issue to resolve but outside the motorcycle.
Returning to what truly matters, the performance of the riders, the highlight was Locatelli (Pata Prometeon Yamaha), who concluded the session with a lap time of 1:29.197s to beat the Lowes brothers: Alex (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) finished 0.106s behind the Italian, and Sam (ELF Marc VDS Racing Team), making his debut in the championship, was third.
Remy Gardner (GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team) was fourth and defeated the returning Andrea Iannone (Team GoEleven).
Álvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) seemed to be struggling, setting the eighth fastest time 0.837s behind #55, with Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) closing the top ten with a 1.157s difference from the leader. Jonathan Rea (Pata Prometeon Yamaha) was 12th.
In the second session of the day, the events changed but not drastically. Alex Lowes was this time the fastest with his best lap completed in 1:29.042s, with Bulega (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati), the 2023 world champion in WSSP, being 0.059s slower than the session leader. Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Team) showed a highly competitive pace and finished third, 0.195s behind his compatriot.
Michael Van Der Mark (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) was fourth, ahead of Sam Lowes. Andrea Iannone once again showed a strong pace and finished sixth.
Razgatlioglu improved one position overall and finished ninth, with Bautista “falling” to 12th and Rea ending up in a not surprising 16th place.
FP2:
FP1:
