THE WHOLE WorldSBK paddock sweated it out in the high temperatures that turned most of Italy into a witch’s cauldron, so it is no surprise that the devilishly red machines proved to be the fastest of all – in the hands of Ducati factory rider Alvaro Bautista at least.
He did not come out on top in the overheated and very messy Superpole qualifying, which was taken by Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha) from Andrea Locatelli and top independent rider Axel Bassani (Motocorsa Ducati).
The very nature of Imola, with walls encircling the track and four chicanes to catch out the unwary, means that crashes usually result in red flags and there were plenty of stoppages all weekend. Three, in FP2, for example, but it was yellow flags that caught out a vast list of riders in Superpole. The results had to be revised several times, with the final one seeing top WorldSBK force Bautista relegated to
