New tracks can often throw up surprises in the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship and perhaps there’s one on the cards at the Cremona Circuit. Tito Rabat (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) was quick in Friday’s Free Practice 2 – the day’s only representative session – as he secured fourth place in the standings. He described the Friday as his best day in WorldSBK as he prepared for the Acerbis Italian Round in style.

Rabat’s best time came in his second stint in FP2 when he set a 1’29.976s to record his official best time, although the following lap – cancelled due to yellow flags – was a 1’29.753s, which would’ve put him second behind Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK). As it was, the #53 finished in fourth place behind Lowes, Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing Team) and Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) with just three tenths covering the top four.

The 2014 Moto2™ World Champion completed two stints during Free Practice 2. The first was 12 laps long, with all but three laps in the 1’30s bracket. The times ranged from 1’32.766s to 1’30.501s in the first run, before he put in a 10-lap run in his second stint. His first lap was cancelled in that run so, discounting that time which was four seconds off the pace, he completed nine laps all in the 1’30s bracket, except for the two laps in the 1’29s.

Reflecting on his Friday, Rabat said: “It was definitely my best day so far in an official race weekend! We started quite good. We made two consistent stints. In the end, here is a new track and we had the opportunity to come and test here three months ago. Everyone tested so we’re in the same situation as the rest of the riders. It’s a new track, it’s a narrow track. My Kawa works quite well. We are trying to understand, as a private team with my crew chief and mapping guy, all the information from Kawa. We started well with P4. Now what’s important is trying to work as an official team, try to have some help for tomorrow to make a step the official guys will do. I know that I’m fast. We have the bike; we just need to manage the weekend well.”

Rabat was quick at Cremona in the May test and he also completed an incredible 233 laps across the two days of testing at the Italian venue. He explained why he thinks he’s quick at Cremona, saying: “I do a lot of training. I try to do my best. The official guys go to practice every weekend and I try to go to the Spanish championship with the standard bike to practice. I try to do tests with Manuel, but we can’t do the same amount as the other tests. Then, we try to do what we can, and we are doing our best. The reason for Cremona, maybe because it’s the first time everyone comes here, it’s a narrow track and the Kawa works quite well on these kind of tracks and the most important is the 53^rd track that WorldSBK goes to! Cross fingers, we’ll see if we can take profit of that. We worked so well with the starts. We start well. The reality is we were P4 today, so why not tomorrow? We just need to keep calm, take all the information from Kawasaki and KRT and try to manage the information in the best way possible.”

Can Rabat convert his pace into a top five finish on Saturday? Find out using the WorldSBK VideoPass – now half price!