If you think of Estoril, you always think of the sun, but bad weather was the great protagonist of the first day of testing for the penultimate round of the World Superbike Championship. The morning session was completely wet by rain, which even forced a brief display of the red flag due to the conditions being too extreme and also caused eight crashes, fortunately all without consequences.
The weather was then more lenient in the afternoon, allowing the riders to take to the track with slick tires straight away. However, a few drops of rain still arrived to make the track conditions treacherous, forcing almost everyone to remain in the pits for practically the entire last quarter of an hour.
The cumulative ranking, obviously, is identical to that of the afternoon session, but little changes for the name at the top of the time list, because both in the dry and in the wet it was world leader Toprak Razgatlioglu who stood out. And it must be said that the BMW driver really made a big difference, because 8 laps were enough for him to set a 1’37″355. A time with which he distanced himself by more than seven tenths from his closest pursuer, who was Danilo Petrucci with the Ducati of the Barni Racing Team.
These conditions once again enhanced the characteristics of Alex Lowes, who placed his Kawasaki in third place, just 9 thousandths behind Petrucci. We have to go down to fourth place to find the reigning world champion Alvaro Bautista. The Ducati rider needs to recover 19 points this weekend to avoid abdicating the throne, but against such a top Toprak it seems like a really complicated scenario for the moment. Also because his gap is almost nine tenths.
Nicolò Bulega even pays more than a second, as he is the one who has the most concrete options to try to bring the title race to the last race in Jerez, even if to do so he will have to lose less than 23 points to the Turk. The Ducati rider is sixth, also behind Iker Lecuona’s Honda, and in the morning he was also one of those who ended up spinning. However, today was a day in which it was difficult to draw conclusions, except that Razgatlioglu does not seem to have any difficulty whether it is dry or wet.
Continuing to scroll through the rankings, in seventh position is a revived Axel Bassani, good at showing off his sensitivity with the slippery asphalt with his Kawasaki. The Italian precedes Garrett Gerloff, Xavi Vierge, who crashed in the afternoon at turn 3, and Jonathan Rea, the first of the Yamaha riders, who instead ended up spinning in the morning.
The other Italians are close to the top 10, with Micheal Rinaldi occupying 11th position and ahead of Andrea Locatelli, who also crashed in the morning. Only 14th, behind Remy Gardner, Andrea Iannone, who however has the excuse that he returns to Estoril for the first time after many years. In terms of crashes, in the afternoon there was also that of a Michael van der Mark who was strangely far behind in 20th position, given that he is a specialist in wet conditions.
It is worth mentioning the return to the track of Dominique Aegerter, returning after missing several rounds due to an injury sustained in training. However, the Swiss from Yamaha GRT is at the back, 22nd at over 3″5. Just as Luca Bernardi from San Marino is at the back, closing the group with the Motoxracing Yamaha on which he was called to compete in a wild card.
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