Despite expected rainy but ultimately beautiful weather with 35° in the air and 50° on the ground, the track with the brand new surface of the Mandalika circuit in Indonesia turned out to be very slow for this first session of the penultimate round of the Superbike world championship. It will undoubtedly get better as the motorbikes put more rubber on it…
In 1'36.938, roughly four seconds off last year's pole, Toprak Razgatlioğlu (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK) set the first benchmark of the weekend ahead of a surprising Iker Lecuona (Team HRC) on the reinvigorated Honda.
The gaps are big and the championship leader Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati), 3rd, is already more than half a second behind while we have to go down to 8th position, more than a second from the fastest, to find the last mathematical contender for the title , Jonathan Rhea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK).
Consequently, we will not focus too much on these first results, while waiting for FP2 at 6:05 a.m.
Results FP1 Superbike Mandalika Indonesia:
Classification credit: Worldsbk.com
