Bautista and Rinaldi one and two after FP1 and 2, AB over .6 faster than Rea in third. Going to be an absolute whitewash this weekend. Brady Ray over 3 seconds down on AB Sykes 23rd and more electrical woes!! Decent jobs by Domi Ag and Garret G imo Catalunya World Superbike FP1 Results: Michael Ruben Rinaldi bounces back to lead from Jonathan Rea | World Superbikes (crash.net)
Toseland making a point that the Ducati factory boys should have received the rpm reduction, not the satellite teams. Not that it seems to have made much of a difference.
Interesting to read the new red line is 15,850rpm and the road going Panigale revs to 16,500rpm. So after 2 rev reductions, Ducati still have the highest red line. Everyone with a V4 engine has a natural advantage but who's fault is that?
Watched the whole of SBK FP3 on Discovery+ and apart from a couple of minutes when Greg Haines didn’t realise he had an open mic and was talking to someone about what he was going to say later, no commentary. Just the sound of the bikes and information from the graphics. Absolute bliss. Andy
SS300 superpole red flagged on the first lap for irresponsible riding. Riders getting a right dressing down from FIM. About bloody time too. Andy
Well done Fenton Seabright, qualified 2nd but will go from pole in the first race as the pole sitter has been penalised for irresponsible riding in FP1. Looks like FIM have finally decided to crack down on all the silliness. Shame they haven’t done anything to stop it in Moto3. Andy
Result as expected. Could have potentially been a Ducati 1-2-3 but over enthusiastic riding by Bassani/Rinaldi put paid to that. Bet Rea was miffed with a last lap pass by Toprak. Good for him.
I thought Bassani got the wrong end of the stick and if anything Rinaldi got off lightly. Should also have a LLP tmrw imo. Bassani hardly grazed Rinaldi after he'd literally been Marc Marquez'd by MRR (who then spent the next seemingly half an hour waving to his adoring fans weird behaviour) Absolute mastercalss from AB though, the whole pit straight was his by the end of the race. 250 rpm eh!
Hopefully gets a better start tmrw, got chewed up and spat out for most of the race (barring the accident that pushed him up to the front briefly). Hopefully rides angry and gets his elbows out a bit further tmrw!
I rewound the incident because I was convinced rinaldi made a mistake and bassani hadn’t actually hit him at first, it was that minimal and I still think his head had gone by then and it was 75% his own fault he crashed.
I didn’t bother rewatching it but my first impression was there was a gap and Rinaldi turned in on him. Good watch though. Better than the race.
Bautista will have to let them catch up so he can overtake them again to keep it interesting. Impressive riding, but MotoGP is more exciting at the moment.
At the start of the season most people thought it would be the other way around and moto gp would be the predictable class especially with all the new talent arriving in wsb so at least that’s been unpredictable I guess, but yeh the interest in wsb this year looks like it will be the battle for 2nd. Maybe it’s about time more credit was given to AB too.
Me for it's nice for the Ducati brand being top of the pile for once, with both in Motogp and this race descipline, it's been a long drought since the last victories in both events, so in Thatchers words........let's rejoice at that news.
Notice empty stands . Even though ducati fan boys we need closer racing .end up a boring like F1 Wss race 2 was good
Another extremely impressive weekend from toprak. If he ends up second in the championship at the end of the season you could make an argument it’s a bigger achievement than AB winning it.
I noticed that too , the same thing in motogp with ducati v4 and the yamaha M1 . I think it is time for the other world superbike manufactures to explore different engine configurations than the inline 4.
Agreed ,I just remember many top shelf motogp riders who tried to tame the desmosedici and failed , It's about time ducati hard work has paid off.
