Bautista, champion start!
The Carrera 2 was the most exciting of the weekend, with 8 pilots fighting for fourth place. While this was happening, Álvaro continued to lead the race, scratching tenth by tenth over his teammate, Michael Ruben Rinaldi. The young Ducati factory rider had a good weekend, after crashing in Race 1 in the rain. Some criticized the Bolognese brand for not replacing Rinaldi with Bassani for this season, so we expect a nice fight this year between these two drivers.
In the last bars of the Carrera 2 Lowes went to floor and Toprak couldn’t help it. The zero of the 2021 world champion is a setback at the beginning of the World Cup but the whole season remains ahead. The victory went to the new world champion, who was accompanied on the podium by Michael Ruben Rinaldi and Andrea Locatelli (Yamaha). Bassani (Ducati), Ötll (Ducati), Lecuona (Honda), Aegerter (Yamaha), Rea Kawasaki), Petrucci (Ducati) and Gardner (Yamaha) took the top 10 positions. From fourth to eighth classified they entered the finish line separated by 3 seconds.
“It seemed easy but it was anything but easy. What I’m left with is that we have won all three races with very different conditions, wet in Race 1, the Superpole Race with gusty winds and Race 2 with good weather conditions. I like the fast corners, and there are only two slow corners here, the rest are flat out. In the winter tests I went fast on all the circuits, not just here and now I already know the bike perfectly and the behavior of the tyres. the new bike speeds up a little better at the exit of the curves. I am very curious to see how things go for us in Indonesia. There last year I didn’t feel like I had a chance to win. This season not only Rea, Razgatlioglu and I are going to fight for podium places. Locatelli and Rinaldi are also fast. Razgatlioglu had bad luck because he found a rider down on his line. Something similar happened to Rhea. At the exit of the curves the motorcycle it moves so muchIt doesn’t help that I am so small and light in this regard. We have tried during the winter to make the Ducati more docile but it is not easy. Often, what you gain on one hand, you lose on the other. Everything is so tight that a bad weekend is very noticeable, so our primary objective is not make mistakes”, explained alvaro bautista.
“I usually start well but that was not the case in Race 2 but my biggest problem was the hard tyre. In the Superpole Race we were able to use the soft rubber, which on my bike works fantastically. I immediately realized that I had no grip at all and it was very difficult for me to turn the bike. Johnny usually goes strong on this track and the Ducatis too. Crazy (Andrea Locatelli) He has worked with the new swingarm and in the winter tests it was already going well with the hard tyre. She wanted to follow Johnny but then Alex (Lowes) fell in front of me and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Considering how little grip he had, at best he would have finished sixth. Phillip Island is not my favorite circuit”, he sentenced Toprak Razgatlioglu.
“It has been a difficult weekend, we have been fast in some aspects but we have lacked consistency and we have not found a good set-up. In the Superpole Race I wasn’t very fast and Dominique Aegerter almost took me off the track. In Race 2 it became clear that we had not achieved the ideal set-up. We must understand why we have suffered so much. I don’t expect the rest of the season to be like this, in Mandalika we will start again from scratch”, commented Jonathan Rea.
The Spanish riders of Team HRC, Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge, began in Australia what will be their second season in the SBK World Championship. “In Race 2 we fought for fourth place together with many strong riders and in dry conditions. In the end I finished sixth, I was about to crash twice in my fight with Axel (Bassani). The big step forward is that we have been able to maintain our performance all the way”, he confessed Iker Lecuona.
“We’ve had a tough weekend in Australia. I was passing Van der Mark when there was a crash in front of me (fI was penalized with a position for overtaking with a yellow flag). I thought I finished 10th so I was disappointed to find that I finished 11th”, commented xavi virgin on Race 2.
Jonathan Rea y Toprak Razgatlioglu They have not been able to stand up to the Toledo player in the first date of the 2023 season but this has only just begun. This week the SBK World Championship continues in Indonesia. The action moves to the Pertamina Mandalika International Street Circuit, so we’ll have to go back to get up early!
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