ANDnth and fantastic head to head between the two riders who have been competing for the fastest laps on the WorldSBK tracks since the start of the season: Toprak Razgatlioglu And Nicolò Bulega.
In the Misano Superpole the two won shattered several times the fastest lap of the track and the Italian printed the time by the wire 1’32”221which lowered by about eight tenths the old record and preceded the BMW Turk’s time by 99 thousandths.
The Ducati rookie’s first Superpole lasted only a few minutes, because the Race Direction told him removed the last lap for having overtaken under yellow flags (two crashes, by Van der Mark and Iannone). Toprak thus he conquered his fourteenth Superpole in his career (the second in 2024 after the one in Barcelona).
A depriving second place Bulega of his first Superpole, but it doesn’t take anything away from one capital performance which confirms that Nicolò is one of the favorites for this weekend’s races.
Behind the two protagonists emerged Remy Gardner, who confirmed in Superpole the good things he had shown yesterday in free practice, which he ended in fourth place. The Australian from Yamaha also lapped under the old record (1’32”906) and preceded another rider who few expected to see in the top positions. We are talking about Alex Lowes who is making the most of the concessions that made the 2024 version of the Ninja competitive.
Alvaro Bautista he had to settle for the fifth place and the resulting second row, ahead of Andrea Locatelli. The rider from Bergamo seems to have recovered from yesterday’s bad free practice, which saw him finish in thirteenth position.
The third row will be open Andrea Iannone slipped right at the best moment, a few minutes from the checkered flag. Sam Lowes will start alongside him on the Ducati of Team ELF Marc VDS and Dominique Aegerter. With that of the Swiss there are three Yamaha R1s in the first nine places. The exception is that of Jonathan Rea Alone fifteenth, 1.3 seconds from the top. The crisis of the six-time world champion is starting to become really worrying and we will see if at least in the race Jonny will be able to shake off the problems that have afflicted him up until now. Tenth position for Tito Rabat, who confirms the progress that the Kawasaki Puccetti Racing Ninja had shown in the Cremona and Misano tests. The Spaniard preceded the two Italians Axel Bassani and Danilo Petrucci who will therefore start with him from the fourth row.
Michael Ruben Rinaldi and Michele Pirro disappoint eighteenth and nineteenth respectively. Scott Redding’s twentieth place is no longer news.
