MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

Twenty laps of Portimao at 6pm, promising racing in the sunset. A headwind up the straight made things interesting.

World Supersport race two took place in 29ºC weather for seventeen laps. The grid positions were determined by riders' fastest laps in yesterday's race. Adrian Huertas leads Yari Montella by forty one points in the championship at the start of the race with Stefano Manzi sixteen points further back.

A late starting Superpole race to determine the grid for race two has Toprak Razgatlioglu in pole position, surviving engine issues in qualifying and a rumour of his only having one zero kilometre engine left, having put distance on two of them and finished with the other three of his six allocated engines. His tyre choice for yesterday will also be playing on his mind. The temperature, 30ºC, added another dimension with the heat battering the track and riders. Hard tyres showed up in spite of the short ten lap distance.

World Superbike's first evening race was twenty laps into the sunset, and the race start was at 30ºC with an 8kmh breeze.

The late afternoon World Supersport race start was warm and windy, with 31ºC weather being blown over the track. Valentin Debise crashed on the sighting lap, but lined up to start the seventeen lap race with a few fixes in place.

World Superbike Superpole took place later than usual with the Portuguese weekend taking place later in the day, giving the riders a lie-in every day, but no "Q" tyres.

Danilo Petrucci set the quickest time of the weekend in the early afternoon twenty minute session. Alex Lowes, Alvaro Bautista and Toprak Razgatlioglu were all around a quarter of a second off Petrucci's pace with Razgatlioglu missing out on the provisional front row. The top seven riders all improved on their times from yesterday.

Results:

At the end of Free Practice 1 earlier, Toprak Razgatlioglu rode back to the pits off the tarmac as his bike was discharging smoke from the exhaust as he limped gingerly home. In this session, he held the top spot until his bike did the same time, sending him back to the pits to watch Danilo Petrucci take and hold the top spot with Alvaro Bautista, just before crashing out on a dusty and windy track, sneaking into second place.