MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

Alex Lowes would miss out on the last World Superbike race of the weekend after being declared unfit with a knee injury. What was a supposed to be a twenty-one lap race was interrupted by a red flag. The air temperature was 33ºC.

The grid formed under a 26ºC sun for a ten lap World Superbike superpole race. Riders who were penalised for the start of yesterday's race returned to their qualified positions for one of the shorter sprint races on the calendar. Everyone was on the softer Q tyre to start the race.

In advance of the first World Superbike race, several riders (Bradley Ray, Lorenzo Baldassarri, Andrea Locatelli and Xavi Vierge) were sent to the back of the grid for riding slowly on the racing line in the Superpole qualifying session. Twenty one laps of the French circuit were planned, with a first-time pole sitter and uncharacteristically hot weather with track specialists off the front row hoping to add a bit of spice to the opening laps, but a delay on the starting grid forced the race to drop one lap to twenty. There are three good overtaking spots around the track, turns one, five and thirteen.

World Superbike was fifteen minutes of qualifying with BMW's Garrett Gerloff on pace for his best qualifying of the year in the hot weather, but Alvaro Bautista and Jonathan Rea both held him to second place in earlier sessions.

World Supersport qualifying opened at an uncharacteristically hot Magny-Cours with French riders getting to grips with the track yesterday. The lap record is almost certain to fall this weekend and plenty of wildcards turned up to make the most of the good weather.

A hot morning put Alvaro Bautista on top in the half-hour morning session. Everyone in the top ten improved on their pace from yesterday.

Results:

In a hot session interrupted by a red flag, Toprak Razgatlioglu dragged gravel onto the track that later caught Iker Lecuona out to bring out red flags, Michael Ruben Rinaldi, having Nicolo Bulega confirmed on his seat next year, set the day's quickest time ahead of Garrett Gerloff who maintained his morning's pace.

Jonathan Rea remained quickest overall, with his morning's time remaining unbeaten.

Results:

A massive crash for Axel Bassani, his bike throwing him off and barely missing him after bouncing off the air fence, chopped just under two minutes off the end of the session. Jonathan Rea was quickest, the only rider with a 1'36 lap, with Garrett Gerloff second-quickest, just three thousandths of a second ahead of Toprak Razgatlioglu. 

Results:

After a brief heavy shower of rain messing with the World Supersport race, the temperature climbed up to 23ºC for the twenty two lap World Superbike race on the harder-than-usual tyres.

Alvaro Bautista took advantage of his front row start, in spite of a poor launch, with Axel Bassani, Jonathan Rea and Toprak Razgatlioglu behind him. Garrett Gerloff crashed out on turn one. Rinaldi climbed up to fourth place past Razgatlioglu as Axel Bassani ran on into turn one as Rea took second place from him. Razgatlioglu took third place back into turn one.

After yesterday's blustery rain, a ten lap sprint race at 19ºC with a lot less windwould be most welcome. Ten laps on dry tyres would determine the positions for this afternoon's race, in spite of a brief shower this morning.