Misano 2015 was Markus Reiterberger’s first taste of WorldSBK, as the young German appeared as a wildcard at the Riviera di Rimini track. Fast forward one year and ‘Reiti’ is now a full time WorldSBK rider with Althea, and the rookie German on the German machine enjoyed a good first day back at Misano with the second fastest lap of the day, behind only Nicky Hayden.

Teammate Jordi Torres also had a positive opening day in Italy, with the Spaniard closing out the top 5 and joining his teammate in Tissot-Superpole 2 at Althea Racing’s second home Round of the 2016 season.

“Today was a really good day, we have a good base set-up and only really made one adjustment in terms of electronics,” said Reiterberger. “We also spent time testing the tyres, which all went well, and in the final stages I was able to put together some really fast laps. I’m feeling good on the bike and have good grip. Misano’s a special track for me after I wildcarded here last year so I’m excited to do well this weekend, and I’m pleased to have qualified directly for tomorrow’s Superpole 2. We’ll see what we can do.”

“Today ended well, and we did a good job,” agreed Torres. “Having said this, even though we’ve been able to complete a good flying lap, we still need to improve in terms of race pace, and work to reduce the bike movement. We’ve already made a good step forward, but we need to make another step. I don’t want to make any predictions ahead of tomorrow, as the race will be very long… but we’ll do our best as ever!”

Both Althea riders will be pushing hard to stay at the front as Tissot-Superpole 2 beckons, before lights out for Race 1 on Saturday 18^th June at 13:00 local time (GMT +2).