Gardner still the fastest
In a second day of testing in Jerez de la Frontera without long interruptions due to bad weather, as happened on Tuesday, the element that did not change was the name of the fastest driver on the track: once again, the best time was set by Remy Gardner aboard his GYTR GRT team Yamaha, with the Australian very comfortable on a circuit that has seen much more collective track activity, and not without a few surprises.
Bulega chasing the best time, Iannone the most present
Under clear sky conditions, however, the day began with little presence of riders on the track, with the majority of them waiting for some parts of the track to dry after the rain that fell yesterday. In this sense, at least until midday, the debutant still faced this challenge Andrea Iannonethat with 70 laps Once completed, he proved to be the most present rider of all, with the aim of increasingly adapting to the characteristics of the derived bikes. Once the risk relating to the partially wet track was over, from the first half of the afternoon the activity of the riders on the track increased significantly, with their former teammates Lowes and Rea who occupied the top of the ranking. Dominique Aegerter’s initial performance was also very positive, but above all that of his team-mate Gardner, capable of taking the lead. In the last three hours of testinghowever, another Italian debutant like has made a big step forward Nicolò Bulegathe only one, together with Gardner, to have descended under the 1:39 wall. However, the Supersport world champion lost the lead shortly afterwards to the Australian, who set the absolute best time in 1:38.448. Bulega was therefore second, ahead of six-time world champion Jonathan Rea and Alex Lowes, with Iannone closing out the top-5 ahead of Rinaldi’s other Motocorsa Racing. Excluding from the ranking the riders who rode the MotoGP or Supersport bikes, figure 6th the reigning world champion Bautistawhile Kawasaki’s new purchase doesn’t shine Axel Bassani, who took advantage of the first two days of testing to learn the characteristics of the Japanese bike as best as possible. Iannone’s only negative note was a small mistake at the entrance to turn 1, where Aegerter and Mackenzie also made mistakes. Once again there was a fall for Gerloff, this time at the height of turn 3. In all these cases, none of them suffered any consequences.
Superbikes | Jerez 2023 post-season testing, Day 2
POS. | PILOT | MOTORCYCLE | TIME/GAP |
1 | Remy Gardner | Yamaha | 1:38.488 |
2 | Nicolò Bulega | Ducati | +0.278 |
3 | Jonathan Rea | Yamaha | +0.731 |
4 | Alex Lowes | Kawasaki | +0.763 |
5 | Andrea Iannone | Ducati | +0.887 |
6 | Michael Rinaldi | Ducati | +1,359 |
7 | Alvaro Bautista | Ducati | +1,514 |
8 | Bradley Ray | Yamaha | +1,559 |
9 | Dominique Aegerter | Yamaha | +1,655 |
10 | Scott Redding | BMW | +1,843 |
11 | Garrett Gerloff | BMW | +1,896 |
12 | Axel Bassani | Kawasaki | +2,898 |
13 | Tarran MacKenzie | Honda | +3,662 |
Upcoming events
After these two days of testing, Superbike will now take a break until the second half of November. In particular, Jerez de la Frontera will still be the site of the next test session, scheduled for November 22nd and 23rd. In the calendar year 2023, the Andalusian track will welcome the Superbike again on 5 and 6 December, just after the tests in Portugal on the Portimão circuit, in this case set for 4 December. From then on, the two tracks will host other test sessions, in this case in 2024, before arriving at Phillip Island in February, where the new season will open.
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