WorldSBK Misano Results, Race 2 - Actions and consequences

The fifth round of the 2023 Superbike World Championship takes the series to Italy for the first time this year, and to the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli. This page will be updated with WorldSBK Misano results throughout the weekend.

Overview

Race 2 - Bautista claims third win of the weekend as Rinaldi crashed out

Superpole Race - Bautista handed victory as red flag cuts Razgatlioglu fight short

Race 1 - Dominant Bautista takes 12th win of the season

Superpole - Bautista takes third straight pole in red-flagged Misano Superpole

FP2 - Bautista tops Ducati 1-2-3 in second practice, Rea's struggles continue

FP1 - Razgatlioglu starts out on top as Kawasaki struggle

Race 2

WorldSBK’s Misano weekend concluded with a third race win from three for Ducati’s Alvaro Bautista.

Bautista was the heavy favourite coming into the race, having dominated Race 1 on Saturday, but it was Toprak Razgatlioglu who led early on after taking the holeshot.

Bautista took the lead at turn eight on lap tw, and his lead was almost one second by the end of the lap, while Razgatlioglu was now under pressure from Michael Ruben Rinaldi on the second factory Ducati. 

Rinaldi got past the lead Yamaha rider at the same place as Bautista, only one lap later, and the series of hard accelerations that follow turn eight in Misano meant he was able to use the power of the bike to escape the attack range of Razgatlioglu.

By lap 15, Razgatlioglu had closed back in on Rinaldi, and he passed him on the brakes at turn eight. Earlier in the race, Rinaldi had passed Razgatlioglu in turn one, and he seemed to have decided that he would be able to do it again on lap 16, but instead he hit Razgatlioglu’s rear wheel and fell. 

The consequence of Rinaldi’s action was that, while he made the short trip from the turn one gravel trap back to the factory Ducati pit box, Axel Bassani - on the satellite Motocorsa Ducati - circulated in a podium position. Even after the untidiness of their battle in Barcelona, Bassani may still be the primary candidate to replace Rinaldi - should he be replaced - in the factory Ducati team in 2024. The contrast in results for the two on this occasion was therefore especially highlighted.

Behind Bassani on the podium was Jonathan Rea in fourth place, ahead of Xavi Vierge (5th, top Honda), Andrea Locatelli (5th), Danilo Petrucci (7th), Garrett Gerloff (8th, top BMW), Philipp Oettl and Remy Gardner.

Full WorldSBK results from Race 2 in Misano are below.

2023 WorldSBK Championship | Misano World Circuit, Italy | Superpole Race Results

Superpole Race

WorldSBK got Sunday off to a fairly hectic start in the Superpole Race at Misano, which was won by Alvaro Bautista after a red flag with three laps to go.

Bautista was the only rider, other than Gabriele Ruiu, to choose the Pirelli SCX-compound rear tyre - the others chose the softer SCQ-compound. 

For Toprak Razgatlioglu, this worked at the start, as he took the lead at turn four, and he led a leading group of six early in the race. 

That group broke thanks to the pace of Razgatlioglu and Bautista, and just as the two were about to engage in a battle in the final three laps, the race was red-flagged for a crash between Danilo Petrucci and Iker Lecuona. With five laps completed, the result was called, and Bautista declared the winner.

That meant second for Razgatlioglu, who was robbed - as the viewer - of the chance to fight Bautista head-to-head for the first time in 2023. The podium was rounded out by Michael Ruben Rinaldi on the second factory Ducati.

Axel Bassani took fourth place, ahead of Jonathan Rea, Alex Lowes (6th), Andrea Locatelli (7th), Xavi Vierge (8th) and Garrett Gerloff, who took the final point - and position on the third row for Race 2 - in ninth. The top 10 was concluded by Philipp Oettl.

Before the incident that caused the red flag, Danilo Petrucci had been given a long lap penalty for causing a collision at turn two on the opening lap which resulted in crashes for both GRT Yamaha riders, Dominique Aegerter and Remy Gardner. Aegerter was able to rejoin, but Gardner was not. The Australian was shown by the world feed broadcast to be taken away from the track on a scooter.

The incident which caused the red flag resulted, in a way, from the long lap penalty served by Petrucci, which dropped him from sixth to 10th. Petrucci was too deep on the brakes on lap seven at turn eight, and hit the back of Iker Leucona’s Honda. That fired Petrucci over the high side, and he was seen - in the immediate aftermath of the crash - to be lying, face-down, in the run-off area. He was then taken away from turn eight by ambulance, but there are currently no updates on his, or Lecuona's*, condition (time of writing, 10:34 BST, 4 June 2023).

Full WorldSBK results from the Superpole Race in Misano are below.

*UPDATE, 4 June 2023, 12:25: Iker Lecuona declared unfit following WorldSBK Superpole Race in Misano due to left ankle contusion.

2023 WorldSBK Championship | Misano World Circuit, Italy | Superpole Race Results

Race 1

Alvaro Bautista started from pole position in in WorldSBK Race 1 from Misano, round five of the 2023 World Superbike Championship, and went unchallenged on the way to his 12th win of the season.

After a delayed start for a problem for Bradley Ray on the grid at the end of the warm-up lap, the British rider was forced to start from the back of the grid for the 20-lap reduced (by one lap) distance race. At the front, though, it was all Ducati, as Bautista led the early stages from his factory teammate, Michael Ruben Rinaldi; both of them dressed in a one-off yellow livery for this weekend’s races.

Already, by the end of lap two, the two factory Panigale V4 Rs were pulling away from Toprak Razgatlioglu in third place, who had Danilo Petrucci and Axel Bassani behind him on two more Ducatis, albeit satellite machines, behind him.

The domination was absolute from Bautista, who won in the end by over five seconds. Michael Ruben Rinaldi, in second place, cruised similarly to second place, way clear of Toprak Razgatlioglu in third. 

Danilo Petrucci spent much of the first half of the race pressuring Razgatlioglu for third, but ended up crashing out on lap 15 at turn eight. 

That crash for Petrucci promoted Axel Bassani to a distant fourth place, and ahead of the most-valuable fight on-track. It was for fifth place, between Jonathan Rea and Dominique Aegerter. The Swiss spent the vast majority of the race tasting the gases from the exhaust of the #65 Kawasaki ZX-10RR and, despite an attempt to pass on the penultimate lap, he ultimately finished behind Rea in sixth place. 

Alex Lowes took seventh place, ahead of the top Honda of Iker Lecuona; while Remy Gardner and Xavi Vierge completed the top 10.

Full WorldSBK results from Race 1 in Misano are below.

2023 WorldSBK Championship | Misano World Circuit, Italy | Race 1 Results

Superpole

After dominating WorldSBK FP2 on Friday afternoon in Misano, Alvaro Bautista continued that domination into Saturday morning and Superpole, in which he took his third pole position in succession.

Toprak Razgatlioglu’s first run saw him break the lap record, but Bautista eclipsed that on the first lap of his second run. The second lap of that second run for Bautista saw him crash at turn eight, and, while Razgatlioglu himself was on course to potentially reclaim pole position, a red flag - for oil dropped from Gabriele Ruiu’s BMW - brought the session to an early end.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi seems to exist in a constant state of needing to prove his worth in the second factory Ducati seat alongside Alvaro Bautista, and a front row start from third place will likely help somewhat in that regard. 

The #21 narrowly beat the satellite Ducatis of Danilo Petrucci (4th) and Axel Bassani (5th) to that front row, but the continued performance of Ducati’s independent riders this year proves the competitiveness of the Panigale V4 R.

Jonathan Rea rounds out row two, but his subdued weekend continued, generally speaking, in Superpole, and Kawasaki’s fortunes are not faring much better, in general, considering the #65 is the top-placed ZX-10RR.

Rea’s teammate, Alex Lowes, had his Superpole compromised from the beginning of his first lap. He missed the line on the entry of turn one, and crashed just past the apex. In the end he qualified 10th - behind Dominique Aegerter (7th), Iker Lecuona (8th), and Remy Gardner (9th) on the third row; but ahead of Andrea Locatelli and Scott Redding on row four.

Full WorldSBK results from Superpole in Misano are below.

2023 WorldSBK Championship | Misano World Circuit, Italy | Superpole Results

FP2

On Friday afternoon, Alvaro Bautista decided to assert his customary dominance over the WorldSBK field, finishing the session - and the day - fastest overall by a comfortable margin. 

Worryingly for the manufacturers not from Bologna, the rider closest to Bautista was Danilo Petrucci, but even he was 0.451 seconds slower than his Ducati stablemate. Michael Ruben Rinaldi was 0.007 seconds slower than Petrucci to make it an all-Ducati top three in FP2. 

Alex Lowes was the top non-Ducati rider in fourth on the lead Kawasaki. It was a decent improvement compared to the morning, it seemed, from Lowes, who finsihed ahead of Toprak Razgatlioglu, who had topped FP1 on Friday morning.

Garrett Geroff was just over one-tenth-of-a-second slower than Razgatlioglu in sixth place, and ahead of the fourth-fastest Ducati of Axel Bassani. Jonathan Rea maintained his eighth place of the morning, while Scott Redding and Xavi Vierge rounded out the top 10.

Full WorldSBK results from FP2 in Misano are below.

2023 WorldSBK Championship | Misano World Circuit, Italy | FP2 Results

FP1

When many of the WorldSBK teams showed up in Misano a few weeks ago to complete a two-day test, the weather made things more awkward than perhaps they would have liked. Around a week later, the Emilia Romagna region, within which Misano sits, with hit with devastating floods which cost lives and caused significant damage in the region. From a racing perspective, it also caused the cancellation of the F1 Grand Prix that was scheduled for Imola. Thankfully for WorldSBK, no cancellations were required for the Misano round of the 2023 championship, and Toprak Razgatlioglu expressed his delight at this fact by registering the fastest lap time in FP1. 

The Turkish rider finished ahead of Michael Ruben Rinaldi, who has been, historically speaking, quite strong at Misano in the past, and who backed that historical context up by going faster than his championship-leading Ducati teammate, Alvaro Bautista by 0.069 seconds in FP1.

Bautista himself finished the morning in third place, over 0.3 seconds adrift of Razgatlioglu, but also almost 0.2 seconds ahead of Dominique Aegerter in fourth place on the second Yamaha. Encouragingly for Aegerter, he, on the satellite GRT Yamaha, was ahead of Andrea Locatelli, on the factory Pata Yamaha. With Toprak Razgatlioglu's move to BMW confirmed for 2024, it is possible that Aegerter could find himself as Locatelli's teammate next season, and so the early shots fired now could be of significant psychological importance by next February.

Sixth-fastest in FP1 was Alex Lowes, discouragingly over 0.6 seconds off the pace on the leading Kawasaki. He was half-a-tenth-of-a-second and two places ahead of his KRT teammate, Jonathan Rea, who himself was over 0.7 seconds off the pace of Razgatlioglu. The two factory Kawasaki rders were split by the leading BMW of Garrett Gerloff, who was seventh in FP1.

Behind Rea were Xavi Vierge and Iker Lecuona, who put both the factory Hondas inside the top 10, but were both also more than three-quarters-of-a-second behind the leading pace.

Full WorldSBK results from FP1 in Misano are below.

2023 WorldSBK Championship | Misano World Circuit | FP1 Results

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