This Monday marks the first of two days of testing for the World Superbike Championship in Portimão. Several MotoGP riders are on the track with production bikes, and with five hours remaining, the leader is Toprak Razgatlioglu.
The Turkish rider, set to compete in WSBK with ROKiT BMW, posted the fastest time so far at 1m40.690s on his eighth lap. He is 0.219s ahead of Andrea Locatelli (Pata Yamaha), followed by Jonathan Rea (Pata Yamaha) at 0.250s.
Considering only the best time of each rider, Nicolò Bulega (Aruba.it Ducati), who dominated the tests in Jerez last week, is fourth ahead of Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Motocorsa Racing/Ducati). Further down, two-time champion Álvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Ducati) is eighth.
Despite being a private WSBK test, several MotoGP riders are present, preparing on production bikes before the official Sepang tests. Marc Márquez (Gresini/Ducati) is in attendance but does not appear on the time sheet – unlike Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati), Fabio Di Giannantonio (Gresini/Ducati), Franco Morbidelli (Prima Pramac/Ducati), Marco Bezzecchi (Pertamina Enduro VR46/Ducati), Luca Marini (Repsol Honda), and Enea Bastianini (Ducati). Of these, only Bagnaia and Di Giannantonio are in the top 30. Valentino Rossi is also present in this test, with a time of 1m46.233s ahead of Marini, Andrea Migno, Bastianini, and the time of Alex Lowes (Kawasaki) on his second bike.
Timesheet at 12:00 (local time):