Bulega leads Manzi by 0.510s after Friday Free Practices

Bulega topped Friday’s timesheets as he had a half a second gap to his rivals after FP2 on Friday.

Fastest in FP1, Stefano Manzi concluded Friday in second place 0.510s off Bulega as he heads into his first Superpole and Race 1 with Yamaha. Despite two crashes at Turn 10 in FP1 and FP2, Adrian Huertas took third place in the combined results.

The FIM Supersport World Championship concluded its first Friday of 2023 at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit for the Grand Ridge Brewery Australian Round with two Italian riders at the top of the timesheets. Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing WorldSSP Team) topped the times by more than half a second after Friday’s two Free Practice sessions ahead of Stefano Manzi (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha) with half-a-second between the pair. Bulega and Manzi spent time at the top of the timesheets during the day with Bulega posting a 1’32.852s in FP2 to top the times in the combined classification after he finished second in FP1. Manzi took top spot in FP1 and, while he improved his time in FP2, had to settle for second place in the second session after setting a 1’32.362s.

Adrian Huertas (MTM Kawasaki) was third after the two sessions despite two crashes throughout the day. In FP1, Huertas crashed at Turn 10 around 10 minutes into the session, while he crashed at the same corner in FP2 with around 10 minutes left.

Federico Caricasulo (Althea Racing Team) took fourth spot after setting a 1’33.755s although he did crash at Turn 10 at the end of FP2. Nicholas Spinelli (VFT Racing Yamaha) was fifth after a strong start to his rookie campaign after he put in a late lap of 1’33.876s to take a top-five spot on debut, ahead of Can Oncu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) with around one tenth between Spinelli and Oncu. German rookie Marcel Schroetter (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) took seventh spot on his second WorldSSP appearance at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, lapping 1.119s slower than Bulega.

WorldSSP Combined Results after FP2
1. Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it WorldSSP Team) 1’32.852s
2. Stefano Manzi (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha) +0.510s
3. Adrian Huertas (MTM Kawasaki) +0.889
4. Federico Caricasulo (Althea Racing) +0.903s
5. Nicholas Spinelli (VFT Yamaha) 1.024s
6. Can Oncu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) +1.123s

P1 | Nicolo Bulega | Aruba.it Racing WorldSSP Team | 1’32.852s
“It was a very good day for me. We tried something new this morning to try to improve a little bit from the test. I didn’t like it, so in FP2 we came back to my standard bike, and I felt good. Today the conditions were very different compared to the test, it was much hotter. I’m struggling a little with the pace because it was very hot today. Anyway, we have to keep improving for the pace because Manzi is very fast, and we are missing one or two tenths. I feel very good with the bike so I think tomorrow we can be fast.”

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