Alvaro Bautista picks up exactly where it left off e imposes itself in free practice at Phillip Islandfirst round of the 2023 Superbike world championship. The Spanish rider he commanded both sessions of the daysigning a best time of 1’30”623 and showing the best race pace of the lot. The world champion confirms the great feeling with the Australian track and with the new Ducati Panigale V4 Rahead in the combined standings Andrea Locatelli on Yamaha and Iker Lecuona on Honda.
The latter printed their time in the morning session, while in the afternoon Michael Ruben Rinaldi has taken a decisive step forward to place fourth in the combined. Attention to the rider from Rimini, who is hungry and seems to have the Ducati 2023 well in hand. For the other great protagonists, however, it was a strange day, with Jonathan Rea fifth overallbut slow in FP2 after losing the first few minutes working on the front of his Kawasaki. Toprak Razgatlioglu is even tenth.
They make their appearance in the top-10 Michael Van Der Mark with the new BMW M 1000 RR (6th) e Philipp Oettl, even third in FP2, but seventh in the combined. Followed by Alex Lowes and luxury rookie Danilo Petrucci, who finished fourth in the afternoon on the Panigale of the Barni Spark Racing Team. Said of Razgatlioglu, just outside the ten are Remy Gardner, Garrett Gerloff and Dominique Aegerteror rather the standard bearers of Yamaha GRT interspersed with the ex-rider of that bike, who has now moved to BMW Bonovo. Fifteenth Lorenzo Baldassarri, seventeenth Axel Bassani.
The Italians start very strong in Supersport, with Nicolò Bulega dominated the tests and first in free practice in 1’32”852 on Ducati Aruba. A time trial that would allow him to get behind the last three Superbikes, for the record. Second place for Stefano Manzi on the Yamaha Ten Kate, half a second behind the best time, third the Italian Supersport champion Nicholas Spinelli (Yamaha VFT) one second off the top. Fourth Can Oncu in front of Glenn Van Straalen, then Federico Caricalsulo in sixth place ahead of Raffaele De Rosa. Tenth Yari Montella, passed on the Ducati Barni. Sixteenth Andrea Mantovani.
