The WorldSBK riders and a good handful of members of the Supersport grid have made the most of the first day of private practice that this week is being held at the Portimao Circuit, in the south of Portugal, a track that has received test participants with a splendid sun in the sky and a pleasant temperature of 16 °C, conditions significantly better than those found in Jerez by the Superbike riders last week.
The best time on Tuesday in Portimao was at the hands of a Ducati rider: the Italian Michael Ruben Rinaldi. Álvaro Bautista’s teammate gritted his teeth on his last outing of the day, posting a 1:39.639 on his penultimate lap on Tuesday that allowed the Aruba.it Racing driver to beat Jonathan Rea at that time, staying on the verge of breaking the absolute record of Portimao that is still in the hands of Rea himself with a time of 1’39.610. Rinaldi has reconfirmed the good feelings that he already had in Jerez with the 2023 version of the Panigale V4 R.
Behind the Italian, just 61 thousandths, finished a Jonathan Rea who He doesn’t get out of head positions either. The Northern Irishman has been alternating with Álvaro Bautista (3rd +0.068) and Toprak Razgatlioglu (4th +0.212) in the top 1 of the timing table, and when it seemed that number #65 was going to say goodbye to Tuesday with the best time of the day, Rinaldi arrived and beat his best time by thousandths, also beating the Spaniard and the Turk.
Speaking of Baptist, the talaverano has suffered a minor fall in the morning. They have also gone to the ground, already in a more spectacular way, Alex Lowes y Xavi Vierge in two separate actions that have led to the appearance of two red flags. Fortunately both have escaped unharmed, but not their bikes, especially that of a Lowes that had to settle for the rest of the day with only a Kawasaki in its box.
Coming back with the times recorded today, Andrea Locatelli signed the fifth best record on Tuesday (+0.348), followed by Virgin (6º +0.414), Lowes (7º +0.625), Iker Lecuona (8th +0.942) and the best rookie of the day, Remy Gardner (9th +1.028) on the Yamaha R1 of the GRT team. The new driver of the Bonovo BMW team, the North American, completed the top 10 Garrett Gerloff (10th +1,059), who was the best driver from the German firm on this first day of testing.
And it is that more than one finds the times that the best BMW drivers are signing surprising, en especial Scott Redding, who after finishing quite behind in Jerez today could not get past 12th place, 1.1 seconds behind Rinaldi’s Ducati. Behind, in 15th place, finished the Italian Daniel Petrucci in his second test with Barni Racing, dropping 1.6sec from the lead and with a lot of work still to be done on his Panigale V4 R.
Ready for Portimao Test! Rea, Lowes and Marino as a test rider pic.twitter.com/BDpB3VtHP1
— KRT WorldSBK (@KRT_WorldSBK) January 31, 2023
Among the Supersport drivers, the best of the day was Nicolo Bulega on his Ducati Panigale V2 with a time of 1:43.282, followed by the Italian Federico Caricasulo (Ducati) at 491 thousandths and with another Panigale V2, the house of Raffaele de Rosaclosing the top three half a second from Bulega.
Jorge Navarro, which this year makes its debut in the Supersport World Championship with Ten Kate Racing Yamaha, has tested for the first time the bike with which it will compete, a YZF-R6; The Valencian -who missed the final stretch of 2022 after a serious injury suffered in Australia-, finished 9th today, 2.8 seconds behind Bulega.
Read also: “If the results do not arrive, Honda will not be able to blame their pilots”, says Livio Suppo
The Portimao test will continue tomorrow Wednesday in Spanish peninsular time from 10:00 in the morning to 18:00 in the afternoon.
Portimao SBK Test Results | Day 1
