Barcelona is a Ducati track on paper and, apparently, also on the clock. The Friday of free practice of the Catalan round, in fact, is the prerogative of the Aruba couple, who exchanged positions in the two rounds, but with the same result: an undisputed domination that takes them to Saturday’s qualifying (and race) as favorites absolutes.
In the combined, Alvaro Bautista is in command, with the fourth fastest time in the morning and a stratospheric first time in the afternoon. By setting a 1’41”486, the reigning champion flies to the top of the standings and beats his teammate Michael Ruben Rinaldi by almost a tenth and a half, who started the weekend on the right foot after the difficulties at Assen.
However, Jonathan Rea is not far away and can be satisfied with Friday’s free practice. In Barcelona, the Kawasaki rider remains less than two tenths from the lead and is third, just 19 thousandths behind Rinaldi. The Northern Irishman, excellent second in FP1, closed the second session in third position, thus occupying the third time in the combined.
Closing the quartet is Toprak Razgatlioglu, who already pays almost two and a half tenths of a second from his direct rival in the championship. The Yamaha rider is third in the morning and sixth in the afternoon, in which he is unable to improve his FP1 time. Excellent start to the weekend for Iker Lecuona, who is fifth in the combined standings astride his Honda: the Spaniard manages to grab the top 5 in front of his fans despite being more than half a second behind Bautista.
Andrea Locatelli follows, further behind than the leaders on the first day of the Barcelona round. The Yamaha rider from Bergamo is sixth just under six tenths from the championship leader and precedes an excellent Dominique Aegerter, seventh with the GRT team Yamaha. The rookie is the best of the independent riders at the end of Friday’s free practice and also remains ahead of the other Honda of Xavi Vierge, eighth, and the second Kawasaki ridden by Alex Lowes, ninth. Closes the top 10 Garrett Gerloff, first of the BMW representatives with the M1000R of the Bonovo team.
The other Italians remain outside the group of top ten: Axel Bassani does not go beyond 13th position, behind Scott Redding and Remy Gardner, 11th and 12th respectively. In 14th place we find Danilo Petrucci, who will fly to Le Mans next weekend to replace Enea Bastianini in MotoGP, who is still injured (here the details of the news). At Ducati, Philipp Oettl struggles and is only 16th, almost two seconds from the top. The German finished behind Loris Baz, 15th with the BMW of the Bonovo team. Last of the Italian riders are Lorenzo Baldassarri and Gabriele Ruiu, 21st and 25th respectively.
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