MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

World Superbike's fastest sprint of the year was dry but with the traditional Phillip Island wind. Ten laps would determine the grid position for this afternoon's race and everyone was on the same soft tyres.

World Superbike's first race of the year was wet. Very wet. Twenty two wet laps with two sighting laps.

World Supersport opened the racing for 2023, with both of the 2022 contenders headed to World Superbike. The morning's rain stayed away until the race start. World Supersport is a flag-to-flag race, so when the lights went out, they would race eighteen laps with a possible pit stop. Or would they?

World Supersport Superpole gave us another first time pole position with mixed track conditions making things interesting.

As the session started, so did the rain, sending riders back to their pit boxes without setting a lap time. After half the session ticked by, and the rain stopped, the bikes returned to the track and proper lap times were posted, with Iker Lecuona setting the first 1'29 lap on his Honda, shortly joined by second quickest Alvaro Bautista. Philipp Oettl and Michael Ruben Rinaldi were third and fourth quickest, putting three Ducatis in the top four. 

Results:

Alvaro Bautista continued to be the pace-setter, leading four Ducatis to fill the top four spots. Michael Ruben Rinaldi, Philipp Oettl and Danilo Petrucci rounded out the top four in the afternoon's session, but Andrea Locatelli and Iker Lecuona's quick morning times kept them in the top three overall.  

Results:

Flipping the order of the top two from this morning's session and increasing the gap, Nicolo Bulega took control at the top, heading off Stefano Manzi by over half a second. Nicholas Spinelli was third quickest in this session, but he was only fifth quickest overall as Adrian Huertas and Federico Caricasulo's morning times were quicker.

Results:

Reigning champion Alvaro Bautista opened the weekend with the fastest time. Andrea Locatelli and Iker Lecuona were within within a tenth of a second of his quickest lap as Lecuona struggled with a recalcitrant Honda and Yamaha's Locatelli repeatedly couldn't match Bautista's Ducati in the last sector. 

Jonathan Rea was fourth quickest and Toprak Razgatlioglu finished in eighth place.

Results: