In a cold and gloomy Donington, Toprak Razgatlioglu is there to warm up the atmosphere: the BMW rider, after dominating the two free practice sessions on Friday, has taken a liking to being at the top of the standings and also takes the Superpole of the British round. On the English track, the championship leader signs a 1’24”629 and disintegrates the track record, becoming unbeatable for his opponents.
Nicolò Bulega is half a second behind the leader, the only one to come close to Razgatlioglu’s stratospheric time. The Ducati rider earns the front row and slips between two BMWs: in third position we find a reborn Scott Redding, who on the M 1000 RR of the Bonovo team gets close to his brand mate and starts in a privileged position.
It is, however, a dark night for the reigning world champion: Alvaro Bautista does not go beyond the 11th time in qualifying and is 1.2 seconds behind the poleman and direct rival in the championship. The Aruba.it Racing – Ducati standard bearer is not fully at ease on this track or on this Panigale V4R, and the result is the result of the great difficulties of this weekend. Ducati is not particularly effective except in the hands of Bulega: great difficulty also for Andrea Iannone, in fact, who after an uphill Friday fails to qualify further than 19th position.
Danilo Petrucci was disappointed, who unlike Bautista and Iannone had managed to be more effective by placing himself in fourth position. However, the time was cancelled because it was done under yellow flags due to Sam Lowes’ fall at the end. So, the Barni team rider will start from 13th place. The fourth place is taken by the British rider from the Marc VDS team, who will open the second row, preceding Dominique Aegerter, fifth and best of the Yamahas. The other BMW of Michael van der Mark is sixth.
Andrea Locatelli is seventh ahead of his teammate Jonathan Rea, who will start from eighth on the grid. The Northern Irishman is ahead of his former pit neighbor: Alex Lowes is ninth and best of the Kawasaki riders in a qualifying session that saw a BMW domination. Remy Gardner with the Yamaha of the GRT team closes the top 10.
Great difficulty for the other Italians: Michael Ruben Rinaldi does not go beyond the 15th time immediately ahead of Axel Bassani, 16th. The Motocorsa standard bearer is also behind the Honda of Xavi Vierge, 14th. Iker Lecuona is instead 18th, with two tenths of advantage over Andrea Iannone.
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