The first Friday of competition of the year in WorldSBK has finished, once again, with Álvaro Bautista in front. The dominator of the last official test held at Phillip Island just three days ago has been the fastest throughout the two free practice sessions of the Australian round, placing his name at the top of the timing table both in FP1 like in FP2.
The best record of the talaverano came in the second free training, in the final minutes; the Ducati stopped the clock at 1’30.623, 1.4 seconds off the absolute record at Phillip Island, also putting nearly half a second behind Andrea Locatelli, who ended up just behind Bautista on the handlebars of his official Yamaha R1.
The Italian driver stood out in the morning FP1 with a lap of 1’31.069, and when he tried to make his time-attack in the final minutes of FP2, a crash at turn 10 put an end to his plans; In any case, the mark that he established in the first free practice allows him to close the day in second place in the combined, followed by Iker Lecuona, who has completed the top 3.
The position of the Honda rider is surprising if we take into account that just a few days ago Lecuona stated that he was encountering many problems to be fast with a new tire; the Valencian yielded 506 thousandths compared to Bautista, followed by the official Ducati of Michael Rinaldi (4th +0.534) and by the Kawasaki of Jonathan Rea (5th +0.681), who lost part of FP2 while his team worked in the garage to correctly adjust the front end settings of his Ninja ZX-10RR.
The M 1000 RR from Michael Van der Mark it was the best BMW of the day in Australia; the Dutch rider finished sixth (+0.787), with the German from Team GoEleven Ducati, Philipp Oettl, To his back. They complete the top 10 Alex Lowes (8º +0.836), Daniel Petrucci (9th +0.915) and the Turkish Toprak Razgatlioglu (10th +0.937), who doesn’t seem to find the necessary speed to be with the best in Australia.
A close look at how @19Bautista, @DomiAegerter77 and Alex Lowes take on Turn 9️⃣ ????#AUSWorldSBK ???????? pic.twitter.com/SiQi9FMo9l
— WorldSBK (@WorldSBK) February 24, 2023
In Supersport, the great dominator of the last test, Nicolò Bulega, has commanded the time table again today. The Aruba Racing WorldSSP Team Ducati rider stopped the clock at 1’32.852 in FP2, enough to surpass his great rival in pre-season, also Italian Stephen Manzi (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha), finally second to 510 thousandths of Bulega.
The Spanish Adrian Huertas start the season well in Australia. The MTM Kawasaki rider was left with third place in the combined, 8 tenths behind Bulega, although the negative part of Friday was the two crashes suffered by Adrián, one in FP1 (with a red flag), and another in the FP2, at turn 10. Fortunately, Huertas emerged unscathed from both.
2021 Champion @toprak_tr54 pushes in FP2 as he works to move up into the top 1️⃣0️⃣ ✊#AUSWorldSBK ???????? pic.twitter.com/vjxXqZNZY0
— WorldSBK (@WorldSBK) February 24, 2023
The action will continue tomorrow at Phillip Island from 00:50 in the morning (Spanish peninsular time) with the Superbike FP3. Supersport Race 1 will start at 04:30 and the first Superbike race will do the same at 06:00 in the morning.
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WorldSBK Australia Results | FP1 & FP2
WorldSSP Australia Results | FP1 & FP2
