WorldSBK Phillip Island Test: Rinaldi ‘close but missing tenths’

Aruba.it Ducati’s Michael Rinaldi was back at the top of the WorldSBK times on Monday as testing resumed at Phillip Island.

Having scored a first and third position at Portimao, Rinaldi sat second on day one in Australia, just 0.099s behind Toprak Razgatlioglu and 0.035s ahead of teammate and reigning champion Alvaro Bautista.

The Italian’s goal, to reduce the gap to last season’s top three, seems to be bearing fruit after a promising pre-season which saw him fourth, then third at Jerez before continuing his rise at the rollercoaster on the Algarve. While initial expectations may not have gone to plan as the paddock returned to the circuit last visited three months ago, Rinaldi was back on form in the afternoon, setting a 1’30.773 on his penultimate effort after 71 laps on track.

“Has been a strange day because this morning I didn’t feel really good with the bike,” Rinaldi expressed on Monday evening. “But with the team we made a good job. At the end I tried to push like everybody else and the time was good but I think that we need to work a little bit harder.

“For the pace, Alvaro is the strongest, with the used tyre as well.

“We don’t need that much but you know, is the last tenths that is the difficult one to improve. We are close to the top and I’m pretty happy about the work we have done today.

“Here in Phillip Island we use different tyre choice comparing to Europe or other tracks because it’s a really demanding track for the tyre,” he continued. “The work we have done was to get the feeling of Jerez and Portimao with a different tyre and wasn’t so easy to do that because the feeling didn’t arrive. But the team worked really good and at the end, I feel pretty comfortable riding the bike. We still miss some tenths,