Bulega tops Friday WorldSSP practice – Wild ride for Bayliss

2023 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship

Round One – Phillip Island

World Supersport FP2

Tarran Mackenzie’s week is not getting any better. The 2021 British Superbike Champion got no time in during the two-day practice session early this week after his engine went pop only a few laps into proceedings. And in this FP2 session he went down early on and ended up missing almost the entire session.   Yari Montella also went down fairly early at turn six.

Stefano Manzi was reeling off lap after lap and led the majority of the session off a best of 1m33.389 on his Yamaha.

Adrian Huertas went down at turn ten fairly late in the session which cruelled his chances of improving his standing. The Kawasaki rider was third quickest this morning but failed to get anywhere near his FP1 time in the afternoon session where he ranked only 12th. His FP1 time though still proved good enough to rank him P3 on combined times.

Nicolo Bulega was the first man in the 1m32s when on his 20th lap of the FP2 session he dropped in a 1m32.852 on the Ducati to go top on combined times.

Oli Bayliss was down in 15th place in this session but that wasn’t for a lack of trying. Bayliss saved a couple of little slides through turn 12 but that sent him a bit wide and he drifted way off the blacktop on to the undulating green painted surface on the wrong side of the kerbing, his Ducati bucking and weaving quite violently. The young Aussie seven-tenths slower in this second session than he managed in the cooler conditions experienced in FP1 and down in 15th place but his FP1 time was good enough to see him ranked P10 on combined times.

Federico Caricasulo was a late crasher on lap ten just as the chequered flag was waved to signal the end of the session.

World Supersport FP2 Combined Times

hillip Island WorldSBK/ASBK Race Schedule