From time to time they accept a guest, but Rea and Razgatlioglu are playing a game where there are rarely options for other rivals. It used to be the Northern Irishman who had fun, always alone, but the Yamaha rider is shaking his hegemony in a season where the certainty of seeing the current champion achieve his seventh crown, is increasingly uncertain. The Turk remains insurmountable in his quest to remove Kawasaki rider from the top and the slightest sign of weakness that he may leave on the asphalt, he does not take long to respond with a superiority that only certifies its potential in a course where he is finding the perfect combination that allows him to dream of finishing at the top of the SBK World Championship.
Razgatlioglu has shown it in the first contact with the Montmeló circuit, after a premiere in which Rea began marking territory even if it was for the minimum, since from the start the Northern Irishman had the Yamaha rider only one tenth of your record. And there was still room for improvement. It has not been much, because the Turk has only managed to lower the reference of his maximum rival by 50 thousandths in the afternoon, but it was enough to make his 1: 42.369 the best time of the day, after launching a message that could even go unnoticed. Although it would be a big mistake.
Razgatlioglu ends the first day of the weekend with homework done. Something almost impossible at the beginning of a round and at the same time, decants him as a favorite in his fight with Rea for leading this new assault. Because Redding couldn’t improve sixth place. The Turk has been the only one who has worked in the long runs During today’s session, which shows that his tuning to the Yamaha is exceptional and at the first changes he is able to find a competitive combination with which he can afford to work on race rhythms earlier than normal. Which puts him back as a favorite on a track where, in the afternoon, the Kawasaki rider settled for fourth position, scare included.
Rea is riding to the limit to try to minimize a gap with Razgatlioglu that can take its toll at the end of the year. The Northern Irishman, after several attempts in which he saw how it was impossible for him to reach the time of the Turk, fluffed already when the checkered flag had fallen to try to make up the session and the only thing he got was a straight braking at Turn 10, on an unruly Ninja ZX-10RR.
He didn’t even try to make the line the champion assumed his mistake and it was long in an area much less conflictive than the one at the finish line. First it was Locatelli and later Bautista just three minutes from the end, who starred an almost identical creep at the exit of the 14th. The point of acceleration that precedes the finish line was also a point of falls and the Spanish had to settle for a ninth place that he will try to improve from tomorrow, on the first date of the year without a Tito Rabat who announced his departure from the World Cup a week ago with immediate effect.