Superbike Magny-Cours, FP2: Ducati dominant, Montella sets his sights on Bulega. Signs from Honda

Second free practice again rewards the WorldSBK points leader and Ducati, with the other manufacturers once more in pursuit. Panigale dominance in France as well?

Friday at the Superbike round in Magny-Cours ends with the fastest time set by Nicolò Bulega, already the leader of the morning FP1. In the afternoon he topped FP2 in 1'35.916, 125 thousandths ahead of a very fast Yari Montella on the Barni Spark Racing Team Ducati. The top 5 features only Panigale V4 R machines. Sam Lowes (Elf Marc VDS) and Lorenzo Baldassarri (Go Eleven) lead Iker Lecuona (Aruba Ducati), who crashed between turns 11 and 12 at the start of the second free practice session. The Spaniard returned to the box with a heavily damaged bike and the Ducati technicians had to work hard to fix it, allowing the rider to get back on track.

The first non-Ducati is Xavi Vierge’s Yamaha R1, sixth in this afternoon’s timesheets. Behind him are Miguel Oliveira’s BMW and Garrett Gerloff’s Kawasaki. The top 10 is completed by Alberto Surra’s Panigale (Motocorsa) and Alex Lowes’ Bimota. An encouraging eleventh time for Jake Dixon on the Honda.

It should be noted that the HRC team, like the ROKiT BMW Motorrad team and the Elf Marc VDS team, carried out a test right here in France around mid-August. The data collected will certainly be useful for this weekend.

Twelfth time for rookie Stefano Manzi with the GYTR GRT Yamaha team’s R1. Subdued performance from Axel Bassani, fourteenth with the other Bimota. The same goes for Alvaro Bautista, only fifteenth with the second Barni Spark Racing Team Ducati, and for Danilo Petrucci (eighteenth on BMW). Andrea Locatelli is nineteenth on the timesheet, but his FP2 was affected by a technical issue at the start of the session that forced him to stay in the box.

Also to report is Bahattin Sofuoglu’s heavy crash with the Yamaha Motoxracing team’s R1: shortly after Lecuona’s fall, his came between turns 1 and 2. He had to be helped by the marshals to get out of the gravel runoff.