There Superbikes disembarks at Misano for the fourth round of the 2024 world championship which will be followed by the second Italian appointment with the Cremona stage in September. The title challenge is beautiful and lives on sporting duel between Alvaro Bautista And Toprak Razgatlioglu who, among other things, have won the last seven races held here at the Marco Simoncelli, five by the double world champion Ducati and two by the new BMW signing.
After three rounds (of the twelve scheduled) I am six points separate the Spaniard, current leader of the Championship and his closest pursuer. Such a small gap in the rankings has not been seen since 2020, when Redding and Ducati were just four points behind the pair Rea-Kawasaki with the six-time world champion from Northern Ireland who had achieved his first WSBK success in Misano in 2009 (which would be followed by another 118…).
The fight for the 2024 title, at the moment, seems to be a question between Bautista And Razgatlioglu. The Ducati rider, fresh from a difficult start to the season, seems to have returned to his (very high) standards and couldn’t do otherwise given the aggressiveness of his rival capable of making the BMW S1000RR race like no other ever. After just three rounds, in fact, the German company already has the possibility of equaling its best years, 2012 and 2013 with six victories (today there are already three).
However, the 2024 season does not live only from the sporting battle between Bautista and Razgatlioglu, in fact today five different winners after nine races and the conditions for a highly spectacular Emilia Romagna round are all there.
In Misano it will be Grand’Italia between confirmations and returns
The 2024 World Cup is proving to be a great season for the Italian pilots with ten podiums collected by our team (over a third) and four Italians in the overall top-10 after three rounds. The rookie Bulega, in his first year of Superbike as Supersport world champion, is already a top rider. Third in the world championship with a victory in Australia and four podiums overall, the Aruba.it factory Ducati rider has 109 points in the standings, just eight behind Razgatlioglu and 14 behind teammate Alvaro Bautista.
Andrea Locatelli he is fifth in the standings, best Yamaha at the moment in the world championship, thanks to two second places and with a possible victory in Australia that slipped away in the final stages of the race. The pursuit of his first success in WSBK continues and the time now seems ripe for a liberating success. At 64 points, together with the consistent rider from Bergamo, we find another debutant in Superbike after Bulega. AND’ Andrea Iannone since round 1, he has been firmly in the positions that count in a championship that is new to him in terms of motorcycles, the Ducati Panigale V4 of the independent team GoEleven, and tires (Pirelli). In the nine races run up to Misano, the rider from Vasto has already achieved two podiums, a second and a third place which count a lot and which have relaunched his career after a four-year break from racing.
Scrolling through the top 10 we arrive at the ninth position occupied by Danilo Petrucci, who completely missed the third round in Holland due to a scary accident in training with the motocross bike. After the stop in Assen the Barni racing driver back on track although not yet 100%, but having “broken in” his physique in the recent tests at Misano which preceded this weekend’s round. Further back in the rankings we then find Bassani debuting with the official Kawasaki KRT e Rinaldi he too with a new team, Motocorsa Ducati, who chose him to replace the Venetian who moved to the Japanese company. The two are sixteenth and seventeenth respectively with 22 and 21 points.
At Misano, the Italian patrol will also be enriched by an extremely important wild card, the Ducati test rider Michele Pirro he will in fact be at the match and it will be nice to see him on the track at Marco Simoncelli, a bit of a second home for him.
