Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba.it Ducati) was the fastest man on his home track on Friday and was primarily a headache for his team-mate Scott Redding.

WSBK Day 1 in Misano: Redding with problems – Rinaldi with the fastest time

In the first free practice, Michael Ruben Rinaldi was second fastest behind Toprak Razgatlioglu, while Scott Redding had spent half the time in the pits after a technical problem. Because he didn’t stop at the track immediately afterwards, the stewards immediately banned him for the first half of FP2. His Aruba.it Ducati teammate then set the fastest time in the second free practice session, ahead of Lowes, Rea and Toprak, while Redding had to be content with only the sixth-fastest time of the day in the end. The Italian was to be expected in his home race, while his compatriot Locatelli was astonishingly far behind with P18. Except for Tom Sykes with the eighth-fastest time, the rest of the BMW drivers seemed to be clearly trying hard to set really fast laps. With Bautista and Haslam, however, both HRC Honda were in the top ten after Friday.

Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with Brixx) on the racetrack on the Adriatic coast – the Turk is one of the top favorites for this weekend, and he is in brilliant shape. Another aspect that should cause a headache for Redding, who is currently only 3rd in the World Cup.

The pressure on the vice world champion and third place in the World Championship is growing
While leader Jonathan Rea seemed visibly relaxed, especially in the afternoon, and his Kawasaki team-mate Alex Lowes was also among the fastest, the pressure on Scott Redding is growing ever stronger. The Englishman only has half an hour left in FP3 on Saturday morning to prepare for Superpole. On the first day, in addition to the two Kawasaki drivers, Toprak and Rinaldi in particular appeared to be significantly faster than him, and Gerloff also had a better time on Friday morning than the current World Championship third. Should Scotty only play third fiddle on Saturday, he will come under tremendous pressure and run the risk of making another fatal mistake after run 2 in Estoril. Instead of being able to fight for the lead directly with Rea in the first race on Saturday, he is faced with the problem of just having trouble leaving the drivers who have been ahead of him so far. It is unlikely that Ducati will issue a stable order in favor of the Englishman after only two of the 13 planned world championship rounds. Redding is now even threatened with danger from its own camp for the Italian races.

Scott Redding (Aruba.it Ducati) in the Ducati Box with Gigi dall’Igna as an attentive observer – the 2020 vice world champion is facing an enormous challenge on the weekend in Italy if he does not want to lose even more ground in the World Championship on Leader Rea.

Leon Haslam (HRC-Honda): „We improved our lap time slightly at the end of the session, but I’m not really happy. I was very confident this morning after doing my fastest lap on the very last lap of the tire, so I wanted to get a much better result this afternoon, which I think was within reach. Instead, we were unable to take the step we wanted as we had a couple of issues, so I feel like we lost a good opportunity. Now we have to regroup and be ready to take this step tomorrow.“

Leon Haslam (HRC Honda) like his team-mate Alvaro Bautista had finished in the top ten, which means a good starting point for the two of them for the first race on Saturday after the setback in Estoril (© HRC Honda).

Alvaro Bautista (HRC-Honda): „The level of competition seems to increase with every lap and the lap times between the various drivers and manufacturers increased more and more. We had a positive day, despite a small crash at the very end of the FP2 session. I’ve tried a few new Pirelli tires, and I’m very happy with the feeling that they seem a little more balanced to me. We have already taken a step forward from one session to the next, improving the stability of the bike. But on the flip side, the electronics setup needs more work after we struggled with it that afternoon. We will try to improve this tomorrow with the information we gathered today. I think we’re already more competitive than at Estoril, so we’ll see what happens tomorrow. It’s good that we have two qualifying tires because we have a better chance of doing a good lap, and it will at least reduce the risk of losing good time with yellow flags.”

The expectations for Saturday

Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team): „In contrast to many others, we did not test here this year. We used an SC0 tire in the morning because we were quite quick with this tire choice on the last two laps. But on this track the SC0 seems to spin a little too much, so we made a small change to the bike in the afternoon, nothing huge, and used a few different tires. We made a good step compared to this morning without changing too much on the bike. There are a few bumps in turn three and a bit in the last corner where you are at the entry, but other than that the track is great, and the grip is better than I remember. It’s a very good job for me.“

Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team) was one of the strongest drivers on Friday, and he already had good results at Misano. Pilots like Redding still have to prove on Saturday that they can be faster than the Lincoln man.

Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team): „We even have some people in the spectator areas at this round this year and that’s nice to see. Racing is nothing without the fans. In FP1 I didn’t have a rear brake, and it was frustrating. I couldn’t ride the same way and I couldn’t balance the bike in the corner entry. We wasted the first session trying different things, but during the lunch break the guys swapped the system from machine 2 to 1, and it was immediately better. I felt good from the first lap of FP2 and the rhythm came by itself. I enjoyed the track and could understand the new rear tire that Pirelli brought here. At the very end, I also tried the new front tire, so we now have a lot of information. In the afternoon I felt pretty consistent on the tires and very good on the Kawasaki. Now let’s wait and see what Saturday brings.“

Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) at his premiere with the new ZX-10RR Ninja on the track near the Adriatic coast – he should also be the man to beat on Saturday. But Toprak, Rinaldi and a few others will certainly offer tough resistance.

The combined times of Friday

P, No, Rider, Bike, Time(,Gap), km/h
1, 21, RINALDI Michael Ruben, Ducati Panigale V4 R, 1’34.334, , 272
2, 22, LOWES Alex, Kawasaki ZX-10RR, 1’34.628, 0.294, 271
3, 54, RAZGATLIOGLU Toprak, Yamaha YZF R1, 1’34.848, 0.514, 269
4, 1, REA Jonathan, Kawasaki ZX-10RR, 1’34.848, 0.514, 267
5, 31, GERLOFF Garrett, Yamaha YZF R1, 1’34.923, 0.742, 269
6, 45, REDDING Scott, Ducati Panigale V4 R, 1’35.076, 0.742, 271
7, 19, BAUTISTA Alvaro, Honda CBR1000 RR-R, 1’35.202, 0.868, 154
8, 66, SYKES Tom, BMW M 1000 RR, 1’35.232, 0.898, 259
9, 47, BASSANI Axel, Ducati Panigale V4 R, 1’35.287, 0.953, 267
10, 91, HASLAM Leon, Honda CBR1000 RR-R, 1’35.328, 0.994, 267
11, 44, MAHIAS Lucas, Kawasaki ZX-10RR, 1’35.383, 1.049, 264
12, 7, DAVIES Chaz, Ducati Panigale V4 R, 1’35.391, 1.057, 271
13, 53, RABAT Tito, Ducati Panigale V4 R, 1’35.614, 1.280, 271
14, 60, VAN DER MARK Michael, BMW M 1000 RR, 1’35.831, 1.497, 265
15, 50, LAVERTY Eugene, BMW M 1000 RR, 1’35.927, 1.593, 271
16, 94, FOLGER Jonas, BMW M 1000 RR, 1’36.010, 1.676, 270
17, 3, NOZANE Kohta, Yamaha YZF R1, 1’36.044, 1.710, 267
18, 55, LOCATELLI Andrea, Yamaha YZF R1, 1’36.182, 1.848, 265
19, 32, VINALES Isaac, Kawasaki ZX-10RR, 1’36.340, 2.006, 265
20, 23, PONSSON Christophe, Yamaha YZF R1, 1’36.966, 2.632, 265
21, 76, CAVALIERI Samuele, Kawasaki ZX-10RR, 1’37.211, 2.877, 255
22, 84, CRESSON Loris, Kawasaki ZX-10RR, 1’39.235, 4.901, 263

Stand in the WorldSBK World Championship

The “Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli”

Misano weekend schedule

>WSBK Misano Preview see separate report on this page.

Unless otherwise mentioned, applies to all images (© WorldSBK).