Argentina WSBK: Razgatlioglu tops Friday practice ahead of Rea

Facing a 56-point deficit to Ducati’s Bautista in the standings coming into the weekend, Razgatlioglu set a time of 1m37.511s with 15 minutes to run in FP1 to end the day the quickest of all at Circuito San Juan Villicum.

His chart-setting time was more than a tenth up on his pole-sitting lap from 2021 and put him two just tenths clear of his nearest challenger Rea on the factory Kawasaki, with Bautista a similar margin behind in third.

Both Rea and Bautista were able to go faster than their respective FP1 times in the afternoon, with Rea even topping the session, but neither could come close to Razgatlioglu’s benchmark as they settled for second and third respectively in the combined order.

Best-of-the rest on Friday was Kawasaki’s Alex Lowes, who narrowly beat Yamaha rival Andrea Locatelli to fourth overall with a time of 1m38.068s set in FP2.

Axel Bassani was classified sixth and the top independent rider on the Motocorsa Ducati, although his best effort of 1m38.443s in FP1 was nearly a second off the pace of Razgatlioglu.

Iker Lecuona put Honda seventh on the combined order after failing to improve on his previous time in FP2, while Scott Redding narrowly beat teammate Michael van der Mark to finish as the best BMW rider in eighth.

They were closely followed by Loris Baz on the satellite Bonovo BMW, while Garrett Gerloff wasn’t too far off the pace in 11th on his GRT Yamaha.

Maximilian Scheib finished 21st in both sessions on his WSBK comeback, having been called at the last-minute to replace Hafizh Syahrin, who suffered an injury while training for a bicycle road race.

The second practice of the day was delayed by more than 30 minutes due to a red flag in the World Supersport support category, where Baris Sahin suffered a crash at Turn 13.

FP1 results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	1	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Yamaha	1'37.511
2	65	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki	1'37.833	0.322
3	55	Andrea Locatelli	Yamaha	1'38.082	0.571
4	19	Alvaro Bautista	Ducati	1'38.153	0.642
5	47	Axel Bassani	Ducati	1'38.443	0.932
6	7	Iker Lecuona	Honda	1'38.452	0.941
7	22	Alex Lowes	Kawasaki	1'38.454	0.943
8	45	Scott Redding	BMW	1'38.547	1.036
9	21	Michael Ruben Rinaldi	Ducati	1'38.818	1.307
10	60	Michael van der Mark	BMW	1'39.180	1.669
View full results

FP2 results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	65	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki	1'37.707
2	1	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Yamaha	1'37.778	0.071
3	19	Alvaro Bautista	Ducati	1'37.986	0.279
4	22	Alex Lowes	Kawasaki	1'38.068	0.361
5	47	Axel Bassani	Ducati	1'38.448	0.741
6	7	Iker Lecuona	Honda	1'38.526	0.819
7	60	Michael van der Mark	BMW	1'38.601	0.894
8	55	Andrea Locatelli	Yamaha	1'38.606	0.899
9	76	Loris Baz	BMW	1'38.680	0.973
10	31	Garrett Gerloff	Yamaha	1'38.701	0.994
View full results