WorldSBK Assen: Bautista takes charge in second session

Current WorldSBK series leader Alvaro Bautista took charge of the Assen timesheets this afternoon, going underneath his own lap record from 2019 to lead Jonathan Rea by the business end of three tenths.

The Aruba Ducati man set a 1’34.382 with ten minutes left to run and Rea had no answer, finishing on a 1’34.680 with team-mate Alex Lowes jumping up to third with two minutes to go.

On the other side of the Ducati garage, it was a solid Friday Michael Rinaldi, with the Italian starting strongly in fourth in the opening session and then fourth again in FP2, although in FP2, he was 11th for most of the session. A fresh tyre at the end of FP2 took him up to seventh overall.

It was a good start for Yamaha, with Toprak Razgatlioglu topping the opening session in the morning before putting in a commendable long run on the SCX tyre in FP2, gaining valuable data for race one on Saturday. Despite being second for most of the session in FP2, Toprak didn’t push for a lap time but had far and away one of the best long runs of the day, having been under the race lap record right from the start.

At the end of the session, he finished fourth, lapping every lap within a quarter of a second of his fastest time in the long run. For teammate Andrea Locatelli, he was seventh in the morning session, eighth in FP2 and ninth overall. Toprak didn’t improve his lap time in FP2, relying on his FP1 effort.

The Kawasaki charge came on strong in the afternoon as both Rea and teammate Lowes improved their times compared to the morning. The six-time World Champion and 15-time Assen race winner improved by half a second to put himself right in contention. Rea began a flying lap right at the end of FP2 but was losing most of his time, in comparison to