World SBK | Round 10 | Tissot Aragon Round | 27 - 29 Sep

Wow, that snuck up on me:

Pole Position: Right
Length: 5.077 Km
Corners: 17
Right Corners: 7
Left Corners: 10

All times are Eastern




FP2 is happening right now, but Toprak is back, he was at the top in FP1 with a 1'49.021 followed by GG less than a half a second back.

 

GG topped FP2 with a 1'49.017, followed by Bulega with 1'49.153. Lots of yellow flags cancelling laps with a red flag for a crash.

 

GG tops FP2 over a small fleet of Ducs. Top 14 all within 1 second, so really anyone in that bunch could potentially compete for a podium.

 

This is going to be good weekend of racing

 

GG and Toprak's top times today (1:49 flats) were the same as the Honda/HRC Motogp bikes that were there a few weeks ago and just over 2 sec/lap slower that MM93's quali time. That gap will get smaller tomorrow when they qualify as well - impressive.

 

Go Garrett!

-T

 

I remember reading that from an outright pace perspective, a WSBK machine can match a GP bike for a lap, maybe two, but over race distance the GP bike just walks away.

Nonetheless, this is really cool, and a testament to how hard those guys are pushing. Especially Toprak after the accident he had.

Hoping Garrett has another positive weekend!

 

Damn shame that he has been on a decent form these last rounds and is splitting from BMW.

 

If you look at the best comparisons of same track, similar conditions - WSBK bikes are typically 1-2 seconds behind when you look at the top bike for each class, if you took an average of all riders I'm guessing it would be similar or even a greater spread. It's up to you to say whether that means they "match" or not but regardless for a production bike with very limited aero, no rear ride height device to help drive out of corners, likely a much lower spec of electronics, steel vs carbon brake disks, and the increased weight of the bikes overall - yeah, damn impressive indeed in my books.

And agreed on Garrett - another round where he's battling for the top 5-7 positions would be great for him, he's gotta nail qualifying though as we've seen this "Fast on Friday but qualify in 13th Saturday" story way too many times the past few years.

Gonna be tougher this weekend with Rea and Toprak back in the mix but his pace today was amazing so fingers crossed for him.

 

I don't have the citation on hand so maybe there was license being taken with "matching" of times between the two so I'll defer to you and agree that regardless... given the technical disparities (deficiencies?) between the two, a WSBK getting close to a GP time is impressive either way.

Has he been inching toward this level of riding this whole time or has something significantly changed? I need to catch up on the series a bit more... I assumed Rea was still lingering in the doldrums on the R1 in mid pack. Is he progressing?

 

Rea is like that old family dog that just kind of walks around, slowly and barks whenever. You can't take him out back and Lassie him out of respect for what he's done but he's definitely doing a VR46 retirement tour this season.

 

After 10 rounds, he has 117 points and well over half of those have come in the past 3 rounds so yeah, he's found something either on the bike or between his ears that has given him a huge step up to get more season points in 3 rounds vs the previous 7 rounds combined.

Given Bonovo is going kaput with BMW - my guess is the extra points haul is a combo of going to his fav tracks and having confidence vs bike upgrades.

 

Or maybe because he knows this ride is over, he isn't as nervous and is just finally getting with the program?

I can't imagine the ex factory Kawasaki bikes will be as good as what he has now, especially with Kawasaki transitioning to Bimota, but I really don't have a clue. I actually signed up with WSBK this year, hoping Gerloff would have a good year, and with Toprak and REA changing teams there would be a bunch of good races. Hasn't turned out that way.

 

Who’s up watching race 1?

 

I am.

 

Gutted for Bulega.

 

Let’s go Garrett!!!

 

GG 3rd

 

WOW!!! What a Race!!!

 

Fuck yes!!! That’s his best podium of the year. Great fucking race. Dicing it up like an absolute professional against 3 GP race winners and a WSBK champion and points leader. And he absolutely looked like he belonged right there amongst them.