MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

After his stumble in Barcelona, Nicolo Bulega has stamped his authority on the World Supersport class once again by taking a comfortable victory in Race 1 at Misano. After bogging his Aruba.it Ducati off the line, Bulega recovered his composure and moved his way past Federico Caricasulo, Marcel Schrötter and Yari Montella to take the lead on the second lap, and then open up a gap. Once past Schrötter, Bulega was untouchable, escaping to a lead of over 2 seconds which he maintained to the end of the race.

The battle for second was only settled on the last lap. Marcel Schrötter held second spot for a few laps, before first Stefano Manzi, then Federico Caricasulo came past. Schrötter stuck with the two Italians, but the MV Agusta rider could never really get close enough to mount a challenge for the podium.

Manzi seemed to have second place wrapped up, but the Ten Kate Yamaha rider found the Althea Ducati of Caricasulo closing in as the laps counted down. Caricasulo tried a desperate pass at Turn 14 on the last lap, but had to go in too hot to get in front of Manzi, making it easy for the Ten Kate Yamaha man to cut back and retake second, leaving Caricasulo to finish third. Marcel Schrötter finished in fourth, and Yari Montella grabbed fifth.

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Alvaro Bautista has taken a dominant win in the first race for the WorldSBK class at Misano. With a special yellow livery on his Aruba.it Ducati Panigale, celebrating Ducati's success in the 1990s, the reigning world champion led from lights to flag. He got a strong drive off the line, entered Turn 1 in the lead, and had a gap of nearly half a second by the end of the first lap. From then, he set a searing pace which no one else could follow.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi took second spot after winning the battle with Toprak Razgatlioglu into Turn 1. Though Razgatlioglu tried to cling on to the tail of Rinaldi, the Pata Yamaha rider never really threatened the Italian, Rinaldi making it an Aruba.it Ducati 1-2. 

Razgatlioglu finished a comfortable third, after fending off challenges in the early part of the race from the Ducatis if Danilo Petrucci and Axel Bassani. Petrucci crashed out of fourth on lap 15, handing the position to the Motocorsa Ducati rider.

While the gaps at the front where large, the battle for fifth was thrilling, Dominique Aegerter doing everything he could to try to squeeze past Jonathan Rea. The GYTR GRT Yamaha rider managed it only briefly at Turn 14 on the penultimate lap, but Rea's experience helped him push Aegerter back into sixth, the Kawasaki rider ending the race in fifth.

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A red flag caused by Gabriele Ruiu's BMW engine blowing up with two-and-a-half minutes to go in the session settled the final grid for this afternoon's World Superbike race, leaving a host of riders on flying laps unable to improve with oil on the track.

That left Alvaro Bautista on pole, the Aruba.it Ducati rider having broken the lap record on his first run before crashing out on his second. Toprak Razgatlioglu was disappointed to have his second run brought to an early end, as he was one of the riders showing red sectors when the red flag came out, and likely on his way to improving his best time. The Pata Yamaha rider will start from second on the grid, ahead of Michael Ruben Rinaldi on the second Aruba.it Ducati.

The second row sees two more Ducatis entering the fray, Danilo Petrucci setting in fourth, and Axel Bassani in fifth, while Kawasaki's Jonathan Rea will start Race 1 from sixth.

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Nicolo Bulega has smashed the Misano lap record for the World Supersport class on his way to grabbing pole for the Emilia-Romagna round. The Aruba.it Ducati rider slipped under Dominique Aegerter's pole record from 2022 on his first lap, before going on to improve the pole record by nearly seven tenths of a second.

Althea's Federico Caricasulo will start from second on the grid, despite suffering a technical problem on his last flying lap. Caricasulo was also under the old lap record, but six tenths slower than Bulega. Yari Montella made it a Ducati clean sweep of the front row of the World Supersport grid, while Marcel Schrötter was the first non-Ducati on the grid, the MV Agusta rider qualifying in fourth, nearly 1.2 seconds slower than Bulega.

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The 1000th Grand Prix got underway in front of a record crowd bringing up the noise at a resplendent Le Mans and although victory wasn’t to be for the home favourites, there was no contesting Marco Bezzecchi’s magnificent ride into the records books. The Italian escaped the early drama to disappear into the sunset by over four seconds and claim a dominant victory. Jorge Martin had a more eventful ride into his first proper podium of the season, in second place, and was joined on the podium by teammate Johann Zarco, who inherited third to the delight of the fans. Or maybe it was just sheer joy for the end of Bezzecchi’s questionable moustache.

It was Marc Marquez who stole the spotlight at the beginning of the 27-lap race, the Spaniard getting the holeshot off the line to lead into turn one in front of Jack Miller, while Luca Marini also snuck ahead of poleman Pecco Bagnaia at the chicane. Martin got his nose in there too but Bagnaia quickly relegated him, with Bezzecchi, Maverick Viñales, Alex Marquez, Augusto Fernandez and Zarco making up the early top 10. Amongst the big losers on the opening lap were Aleix Espargaro and Brad Binder, who got pushed wide at a crowded La Chapelle and dropped to 14th and 18th place respectively. 

Back at the front, Miller attempted a couple of overtakes on the second lap, but Marquez found his way back into the lead, until the Australian made a move stick next time around turn three. Although Miller took control at the front, he couldn’t make an escape, with Marquez and the rest of the leading group glued to his tail. By then Bagnaia had regrouped into third position, with Marini, Viñales, Bezzecchi and Alex Marquez close behind, while Martin and Zarco had dropped to the bottom of the top 10, getting caught up in the shenanigans of the first couple of laps. Nonetheless, Martin was quick to recover and was leading the pursuit by lap five, with Zarco not too far behind. Meanwhile, Quartararo had dropped back to 13th place after making some initial progress off the line, with Binder’s comeback bringing him up to 14th after a handful of laps. 

Disaster struck amongst the leaders on lap five, when Viñales tangled with Bagnaia at turn 12 and started exchanging handbags in the gravel trap. Soon after that, Marini lost control out of the Dunlop chicane and while Bezzecchi was able to avoid him, Alex Marquez wasn’t as lucky and the two tangled quite dramatically. Those eventful couple of laps left Miller, Marquez, Bezzecchi and Martin as the leaders, although the order soon changed as Bezzecchi sent Marquez for a stroll through the long lap loop on lap eight and was soon sanctioned to drop one position for the overly optimistic move. Martin was the beneficiary of that penalty but only briefly, as Bezzecchi was quick to reclaim second position at La Chapelle, with Marquez following his example at the next corner. Meanwhile, Zarco got up to speed and was bringing the next group back into contention, including Augusto Fernandez and Aleix Espargaro, with Binder another second and a half back. 

Bezzecchi decided that Miller’s time in the limelight would come to an end at the start of lap 11, when the Italian breezed past at turn one and Marquez also deposed Miller at turn nine later that lap. By then Bezzecchi was already setting a lightning pace to extend a one second advantage at the front with 15 laps remaining and Marquez seemed unable to close that. The Honda man soon had to resist the late charge from Martin, who wasted little time to further demote Miller. Zarco, Fernandez and Espargaro were still in the mix, while Binder was steadily closing the gap to the group, only half a second behind the trio by the halfway point of proceedings. 

Bezzecchi continued to extend his advantage at the front, going into the second half of the race with one and a half seconds of breathing room, while Marquez was still fending off Martin. Miller continued to fade and slowed down the rest of the contenders as well, so by the time Zarco and Fernandez got past on lap 15, they found themselves one and a half seconds behind the podium battle. Espargaro took two more laps to overtake Miller and the Australian was left to contend with teammate Binder in the battle for seventh. Meanwhile, all the incidents helped Quartararo back into the top 10, another second and a half behind the KTM battle. 

The untouchable Bezzecchi enjoyed his escape at the front, the gap up to two seconds going into the final 10 laps. Although Marquez and Martin were matching his pace, the gap didn’t budge and then started to increase when Marquez ran wide at Garage Vert, so the duo soon switched focus to battling for second. The Spaniards swapped paint at turns 1, 8, 11 and 12 over the next few laps, but Marquez kept coming up on top going into the final three laps. It had been a pretty lonely ride for Zarco by that point, the Frenchman spending the final few laps trying to catch up with the podium battle, helped by the exchanges ahead, and was right in the mix for the last couple of laps. Although he never got a chance to get involved in the fight, Zarco benefitted from Marquez crashing out at turn seven, just as Martin made the decisive move on the penultimate lap. 

Bezzecchi took the chequered flag with over four seconds in hand to claim a splendid second victory of the season, with Martin and Zarco joining him on the podium to the delight of the crowds. Fernandez spent the closing stages of the race fending off Espargaro and although the Aprilia man attacked with two laps to go, the rookie responded straight away to claim a fine fourth place in only his fifth premier class race. Brad Binder found himself with a long lap penalty for taking a shortcut at Chemin aux Boeufs while attempting an overtake on Miller with eight laps remaining, which dropped the South African to ninth. He caught back up with Quartararo to retrieve his initial position, but Miller was now over four seconds ahead. However, the Australian tumbled out of contention in the final four laps and handed sixth place to his teammate. Quartararo settled for seventh, while Fabio Di Giannantonio, Takaaki Nakagami and Franco Morbidelli rounded out the top 10. 

Bagnaia’s misfortune coupled with Bezzecchi’s perfect Sunday means that the two Italians leave Le Mans separated by just one point in the championship standings. Binder drops to third, 13 points behind, with Martin another point back and Zarco fifth, with a 28-point deficit. 

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