MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

As the temperature rose to 28ºC, World Supersport lined up for twenty short laps of the last race of the weekend.

With a grid determined by this morning's Superpole race, giving the winner his first ever pole position, Marcus Reiterberger was once again sent to the back of the grid to serve the strategic engine allocation penalty for a seventh engine for Razgatlioglu's BMW. Tyre choice was between the development and standard SCX tyres. Twenty three laps of the year's shortest circuit opened up at 27ºC, warmer than yesterday, with a matching band replacing yesterday's electric violin playing the Italian national anthem. The weekend attendance was 45,823 at a tiny track with a 20,000 capacity limit.

The morning's Superpole race had a grid where everyone started where they qualified, all penalties being served yesterday. A couple of purple Q stickers were spotted on front row tyres with the rest using X tyres. A cooler 20ºC morning for ten laps of racing round the shortest track of the year.

World Supersport continues its close championship under a 25ºC Italian sun, visiting Cremona for the first time.

Toprak Razgatlioglu's replacement Markus Reiterberger was sent to the back of the grid and handed a double long lap penalty for dragging a new engine out of BMW's reserve, falling on his sword for Toprak Razgatlioglu and ending the fears of the German marque running out of engine allocation. 24ºC weather welcomed the riders to the first ever World Superbike race at the Cremona track. Local police are not used to big events, in spite of a capacity limit at the small facility, and Motomatters has heard that they were inexplicably confiscating water bottles off visitors yesterday.

Updated at the bottom of the post.

After an injury-filled weekend in France, World Superbike misses Championship leader Toprak Razgatlioglu and six time world champion Jonathan Rea. Reigning world champion Alvaro Bautista is carrying an injury this weekend, opening up the chances for others to take control of the races, but both Remy Gardner and Danilo Petrucci have lost three places in the first race for slow riding on the racing line yesterday to make their job a little harder.

Andrea Iannone set a late fast lap to head the last practice session before Superpole qualifying.

Results:

After a red-flagged session, with lots of yellow flags to make it even flaggier, the front row was covered by just a third of a second.

After conditions improved from this morning's session, Alex Lowes took the top spot with Danilo Petrucci under a tenth of a second off the best lap. Unlike this morning's session, everyone managed to record a lap.

Results: