World Superbike Misano March testing
Bautista buoyed by near-lap record pace in Misano WSBK test
Alvaro Bautista says he is encouraged by the pace he demonstrated aboard his Ducati in this week's two-day World Superbike test at Misano.
Jamie Klein
Edited: Mar 18, 2022, 10:35 AM
Copy link
Share on Viber
The Spanish rider set the pace on both days of running at the Italian track on Wednesday and Thursday, which was attended by 12 riders representing Ducati, Yamaha, BMW and Kawasaki.
Bautista was the only rider to dip beneath the 1m34s bracket on Wednesday, recording a 1m33.983s to beat nearest rival, GRT Yamaha man Garrett Gerloff, by four tenths of a second.
On Friday, Bautista improved to a best time of 1m33.574s, less than two tenths away from Jonathan Rea's Misano pole time last year. Gerloff was again the Ducati rider's nearest rival on a 1m33.686s.
"For sure I’m happy because the laptime is fast," Bautista told the official WSBK website. "The best lap here [last year] was a 1m33.4[16]s with a qualifying tyre. Today I did [my best time] with the SCX, the tyre you can use for the race. Last year everybody used this tyre for a race.
"[On Wednesday] when I saw the laptimes, I thought if I can make some laps in the 1m33s, it’s a good result. I did one lap under 1m34s, and this was already good. [On Thursday] we worked more on the details and we improved the laptime from yesterday, also the [race] pace.
"I did a good amount of laps under 1m34s. This is more important than one very fast lap. I’m happy because I didn’t have any predictions about the laptime."
Lucas Mahias was third-fastest on Friday aboard his Puccetti Kawasaki, a little under half a second behind Bautista, followed by WSBK rookie Philipp Oettl on the satellite GoEleven Ducati.
Michael Ruben Rinaldi was fifth on the second works Ducati with a best time of 1m34.316s, a tenth faster than former teammate Scott Redding - representing the works BMW squad alone following Michael van der Mark's injuries.
Read Also:
Neither Yamaha nor Kawasaki had their factory riders present at Misano, while Honda skipped the test entirely.
The next pre-season running takes place on March 25-26 at Barcelona, where Yamaha, Kawasaki, Ducati and BMW are all expected to have their full factory teams present.
That will be followed by the two-day official Dorna test at Aragon on April 4-5.
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Injured van der Mark likely to miss WSBK season opener
Next article Redding hails BMW for "big improvements" in Misano test
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Jamie Klein
Super Formula Fuji: Ayumu Iwasa wins as Kakunoshin Ohta misses chance to seal title
Super Formula
Super Formula
Fuji II
Super Formula Fuji: Ayumu Iwasa wins as Kakunoshin Ohta misses chance to seal title
Super Formula Fuji: Igor Fraga wins while Kakunoshin Ohta closes on title
Super Formula
Super Formula
Fuji II
Super Formula Fuji: Igor Fraga wins while Kakunoshin Ohta closes on title
More from
Alvaro Bautista
‘At Balaton, MotoGP bikes might not even use fifth gear’ – Alvaro Bautista
MotoGP
MotoGP
Hungarian GP
‘At Balaton, MotoGP bikes might not even use fifth gear’ – Alvaro Bautista
Bautista's WSBK win streak finally broken after Imola crash
World Superbike
World Superbike
Imola
Bautista's WSBK win streak finally broken after Imola crash
World Superbike: Bautista completes another treble at Misano
World Superbike
World Superbike
Misano
World Superbike: Bautista completes another treble at Misano
More from
Ducati Aruba.IT
Ducati hands Bulega works World Superbike seat for 2024
World Superbike
World Superbike
Ducati hands Bulega works World Superbike seat for 2024
Ducati set to drop Rinaldi, promote Bulega to works WSBK team
World Superbike
World Superbike
Ducati set to drop Rinaldi, promote Bulega to works WSBK team
Ducati hit with second World Superbike rev reduction
World Superbike
World Superbike
Imola
Ducati hit with second World Superbike rev reduction
Latest news
Colton Herta “maybe underestimated the difference” from IndyCar – F2 boss
FIA F2
F2 FIA F2 12 min
Colton Herta “maybe underestimated the difference” from IndyCar – F2 boss
WEC Barcelona: Genesis secures maiden series pole from Toyota
WEC
WEC WEC
Barcelona
1 h
WEC Barcelona: Genesis secures maiden series pole from Toyota
Five-time IndyCar champion, first-time Indy NXT driver: Alex Palou tops IMS road course test
Indy NXT
IndL Indy NXT 2 h
Five-time IndyCar champion, first-time Indy NXT driver: Alex Palou tops IMS road course test
Gabriel Bortoleto on Kimi Antonelli and Isack Hadjar's F1 success: 'Let's see where we are in 20 years'
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Singapore GP
3 h
Gabriel Bortoleto on Kimi Antonelli and Isack Hadjar's F1 success: 'Let's see where we are in 20 years'
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe