Everybody expected Markus Reiterberger to dominate FPs at Imola as he did at Motorland Aragon and Assen, but this time the German rider has to fight with two Italian riders, both aiming for home win: Roberto Tamburini and Federico Sandi.
And it’s Sandi who ranked first in Friday Free Practice Sessions. The rider from Voghera performed a lap in 1’49.977 in the final stages of FP2 and so he could beat Tamburini (Berclaz Racing BMW) by 262 milliseconds. A great result both for Sandi and for debuting Motocorsa Racing Ducati, constantly in the front with the rider from Voghera.
After ranking first in FP1 Markus Reiterberger, who dominated the first two 2018 rounds, finished the day in third place with a best laptime of 1’50.273. The alpha Racing-Van Zon -BMW rider, whose best result at Imola is a fourth place scored in Superstock 1000 back in 2012, remains the man to beat, but seems not unbeatable as at Assen and it looks like he will have to fight with Sandi and Tamburini for the whole weekend, including the race, scheduled on Sunday 13th May at 15:15 local time.
Who finished fourth is Riccardo Russo, making slight steps forward compared to the first rounds. The Kawasaki C.M. Racing rider is followed in the classification by Luca Vitali, Florian Marino and Emanuele Pusceddu. Wildcard riders Andrea Mantovani, Samuele Cavalieri and Matteo Ferrari close the top 10.
Disappointing 12th place for the Chilean Aprilia rider Maximilian Scheib, on the podium at Asse, while the Turk Ali Efe Yegin (one of Kenan Sofuoglu’s “students”) is last with 10 seconds off Sandi and provisionally out of 107% limit.
