American star Garrett Gerloff (Bonovo Action BMW) finished as the top BMW rider on Friday during the Prometeon Italian Round, but it wasn’t a straightforward Friday for the six-time podium finisher in the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship. A crash in FP2 with teammate Loris Baz disrupted his afternoon session before he put in a late lap to surge up the order as WorldSBK returned to the famous Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari di Imola for the first time since 2019.

On his first visit to Imola, Gerloff was ninth in Free Practice 1 as he posted a 1’48.694s to finish as the lead BMW rider, directly ahead of Scott Redding (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) and Baz, while replacement rider Leon Haslam (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) was 13^th with all four full-time BMWs close to each other in terms of pace and position. Only half-a-second separated the quartet in the first 45-minute session.

Texas-born Gerloff used Pirelli’s SCQ tyre in FP2 to surge up the order and claim third place in both the session and combined classification. He posted a 1’47.454s to secure his place in the top three in a session which was disrupted by three red flags, as well as Gerloff colliding with Baz In the early part of the 45-minute session, Gerloff had a moment going into Rivazza 1 when he was slightly off-line under braking, leaving him hurtling into the corner faster than he should have been. He collected teammate Baz with the pair tumbling into the gravel. Both were able to re-join the session after their M1000RR machines had been repaired, with Baz finishing in 12^th.

Explaining the crash and reviewing Friday, Gerloff said: “I’m sorry to Loris and the whole team. I’m definitely embarrassed to have that happen but I’m happy everybody was okay for the mot part. Loris’ wrist is hurting a little bit. It was just an unfortunate thing. I hate being in this position but it’s not my first time. I’m happy to be in the top three for the day. I did use a SCQ tyre at the end which obviously helps quite a bit. I feel like we’re still missing a little bit as far as race pace goes with the race tyres. We have some work to do but I’m happy to have a good team around me and they’re going to work as hard as they can to get the bike better for tomorrow.”

There were three red flags in FP2 which meant teams and riders couldn’t evaluate long runs as much as they would have liked. The first was after Gabriele Ruiu (Bmax Racing) crashed at Turn 22, before six-time World Champion Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) went down at the same corner later to bring out the second one. The final red flag was after a crash for Tito Rabat (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing), also at the final corner.

Discussing how this impacted his plan, and what’s left for him to work on during FP3, Gerloff said: “My programme was affected by some other things. The red flags are an interesting thing that we all have to think about. It’s something to think about in Superpole and also for the races, to have backup tyres. Hopefully no one goes down and there’s no red flags at all. It’s something the team and I are thinking about.”

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