The first of the official WorldSBK test days took place on the Motorland Aragón circuit and intends to establish a first equally official hierarchy after the various private tests. But it's not going to be easy...
In Superbike, the references are 1'49.620s (Jonathan Rhea, Kawasaki, 2020) for the lap record en race and 1'48.458s (Jonathan Rhea,Kawasaki, Super poles, 2021) for the absolute record in WorldSBK, and, let's say it straight away, the best times of the day are between the two.
This morning, rather chilly conditions saw Toprak Razgatlioğlu (Paw Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK) win with a provisional best lap of 1'50.783 ahead Jonathan Rhea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) at half a second and Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) more than 7/10, while several drivers remained in their box waiting for the track to warm up.
In the intermediate session, the Yamaha spearhead improved to 1'49.410, relegating his teammate Alvaro Bautista and the rest of the field more than 6/10 of a second away!
The hierarchy therefore seemed to be taking shape but this was without counting on a Jonathan Rhea who, in the last of the three sessions, managed to surpass the Turkish driver who was plagued by small technical problems by… 16 thousandths!
A hierarchy ? What hierarchy? Tomorrow is going to be intense… And, hopefully, hotter!
First day testing at Motorland before the Round1! pic.twitter.com/3e5sT5hHHl
— bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team (@bimotabyKRT) April 4, 2022
🇪🇸 @PataYamahaBRIXX's @toprak_tr54 set a blistering pace to go 0.696s faster than anyone in the second Aragon test session, with teammate Andrea Locatelli P4!#YamahaRacing | #WeR1 pic.twitter.com/SmFVZjlp0a
—Yamaha Racing (@yamaharacingcom) April 4, 2022
#AragonTest Day-1 🏁 FP3 🏁
🅿️3️⃣ @ 19Bautista
🅿️1️⃣3⃣ @michaelrinaldi_@ducaticorse I @worldsbk pic.twitter.com/aL9yRTkJyG- Aruba.it Racing - Ducati (@ArubaRacing) April 4, 2022
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