WorldSBK Aragon: Rinaldi springs podium surprise

It is always theoretically possible for a factory Ducati rider like Michael Rinaldi to get on a podium in WorldSBK. The man himself, the 2017 Stock 1000 Champion for Ducati, has already scored four race wins in WorldSBK, and a total of ten podiums.

He’s also a particular potential threat at Motorland, where he scored his first WorldSBK race win as a Ducati privateer with the Go Eleven team in 2020.

But after his team-mate Alvaro Bautista swept in and dominated the Ducati garage in his return from Honda, and after a tough two day official Dorna test for Rinaldi, he left his final pre-season preparation quite dissatisfied - despite some optimistic words. Race weekend got a lot better.

Two days of working with his team, to turn his set-up around before the first round of the season, saw Rinaldi fourth in each of the three Motorland races. And often riding in close company with the obvious 2022 ‘Big Three’ of Bautista, Jonathan Rea and Toprak Razgatlioglu.

Despite no podium, Michael’s three fourth places right behind the podium riders equalled a massive improvement on some people’s expectations, maybe even his own.

He actually supplied his own stat to back up the fact that his race weekend turned out pretty well.

“I go home with my best start in WorldSBK, which is the positive side of the weekend,” said Rinaldi. “We didn’t mess up like last year. For that reason I can go home quite satisfied. On the other side, if you look at the beginning of the race on Saturday, and even more today, I was overtaking Jonathan, one second behind Alvaro, and I was able to catch him because the feeling with the bike was great. I said, ‘I have arrived behind Alvaro, we are here, I do not want to fight with him until the last lap’.

‘We made a