The MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship kicked off at MotorLand Aragon with the Pirelli Aragon Round, with Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK), Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) and Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK) set the pace at the front of the field. Rea was fastest as Friday’s action concluded although Spanish rider Bautista topped the afternoon Free Practice 2 session.

Rea’s best time was a 1’49.301s set in the opening 45-minute Free Practice 1 session on his Kawasaki ZX-10RR machine as he looks to start off the 2022 campaign as he did in 2021, with victory at the Spanish venue. Although he was unable to improve his time in the afternoon session, he completed a 16-lap stint in FP2 with 15 of the 16 laps in the 1’50s or lower bracket as he looked to complete a race simulation.

Explaining how he expects the weekend to go for him following his strong pace, Rea said: “We focused on understanding which tyre we can use for the race. Just built up step by step, a couple more starts, and a longer run in the afternoon. Tomorrow morning, with FP3, we have to see what the temperature brings because we’re in a strange window. We can be fast with both tyres but depending on the temperature we face in the race will determine our tyre setup. The time only really matters when it comes to Superpole. We could finish fastest today, which was nice, and we achieved all our goals. In the afternoon, the idea was to start with a good rhythm, not to destroy the tyre, and to have good tyre at the end. That strategy seemed to work. What’s important is at the end of the race here at Aragon, there’s always a tyre drop, and the last five laps can be critical about whether you’ve done your homework or not.”

Bautista was able to improve his lap time between sessions with the Spanish rider posting a 1’50.108s in FP1 before improving by half-a-second to a 1’49.606s in FP2 as he finished three tenths away from Rea. Bautista used the new SCQ tyre on his final run when he improved his lap time with an eight-lap stint but, like the six-time Champion, Bautista completed a race simulation on race tyres and posted 14 laps in the 1’50s bracket to show a similar pace to Rea.

Bautista discussed potential tyre choices over the course of the three races, saying: “We have to check the data and see which is the best option for us. I am sure, at the front, I will use the SC1 because my feeling with the other compound isn’t so good, but at the rear, for sure in Race 1, will be with the SCX because with SC0 I don’t feel a lot of grip. Even if I’m consistent, I’m not fast. The choice for Race 1, I’m almost sure it’ll be SCX.

Razgatlioglu was another who completed a race simulation on Friday although his pace was slightly slower over the course of that, with only nine times in the 1’50s bracket and four under 1’50.5s. His overall fastest time, though, was a 1’49.665s set in the morning session, when he set the second-quickest time behind Rea. Aragon is a track that Yamaha have not won at since 2011 with Marco Melandri, but could that run end in 2022?

Talking about his day, Razgatlioglu said: “We used the SCX tyre but in the first session, we were not happy. I saw Jonny used the SC0 tyre and got a very good lap time. In the afternoon, we were working on the race bike and we tried a race simulation. After nine or ten laps, the front tyre dropped, and I came back to the box. The feeling with the rear wasn’t but the I felt started to drop after ten laps. Tomorrow, we will improve this, because in the race I need the front tyre. I like hard braking. I’m very happy with the rear tyre and after ten laps I felt a good grip.”

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