On the Aragon circuit, which this weekend will mark the start of the 2022 season of the Superbike championship, the two great contenders of last year, Jonathan Rea And Toprak Razgatlioglu, has re-tied the thread from where they left off in Indonesia at the end of November. In fact, they are always the fastest on the track and are candidates for the role of main favorite for the world championship contest, in yet another duel between Kawasaki and Yamaha. For now, these are just tests, but the Northern Irishman won – albeit for only 16 thousandths. Rea lapped on a time of 1’49.394, two tenths below the time record of the Spanish track that already belongs to him. Much more detached all the other riders with the third, Alvaro Bautista, more than six tenths away. The Ducati driver also crashed, without serious consequences, in turn 6.
The fourth place was the prerogative of Garrett Gerloff (GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team), who took to the track with the 2022 engine. Behind him were Alex Lowes, with the second official Kawasaki, and our Andrea Locatelli, box mate of the world champion Razgatlioglu. They finished the top-10, in order. Baz, Nozane, Lecuona (ninth and first Honda rider) and Laverty (with BMW). All five of the manufacturers present this year on the starting grid have therefore entered the top ten positions. The session was held in particularly cold weather, which makes the time recorded by Rea and Razgatlioglu even more significant. Among the riders who fell to the ground during the day there was also the aforementioned Lecuona, limited in his work by a crash in turn 7.
This is the top-10 of the times of the day:
1. Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) 1’49.394
2. Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK) +0.016
3. Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) +0.631
4. Garrett Gerloff (GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team) +0.726
5. Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) +1,029
6. Andrea Locatelli (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK) +1.039
7. Loris Baz (Bonovo Action BMW) +1,052
8. Kohta Nozane (GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team) +1.126
9. Iker Lecuona (Team HRC) +1.192
10. Eugene Laverty (Bonovo Action BMW) +1.206
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