France WorldSBK Practice Results: Razgatlioglu quickest in FP3 as Rea crashes

Toprak Razgatlioglu dominated Magny-Cours WorldSBK FP3 by over half a second as Jonathan Rea crashed during the final stages. 

With riders greeted to dry conditions for the first time this weekend, representative lap times were being set ahead of a crucial Superpole session. 

Rea was the early pacesetter before team-mate Alex Lowes and Razgatlioglu jumped ahead of the six-time WorldSBK champion. 

Following his spill during the closing stages of FP2, Alvaro Bautista was among the riders showing good speed in dry conditions. The championship leader went third fastest behind Garrett Gerloff and Lowes.

Covered by less than a tenth, the top three then became four as Rea went fastest once again - +0.099s separated the top four.  

Doing his best impression of Razgatlioglu, Loris Baz produced a big stoppie on the approach to turn five which resulted in him running wide. 

Beginning to show his pace, Razgatlioglu then went quickest after gaining three tenths on the likes of Gerloff and Rea in sector four. 

The reigning world champion’s time of 1:37.175s was -0.427s quicker than the American. 

Razgatlioglu then set a first 1m 36s lap of the weekend which was proving very difficult for his opposition to match.  

There was a late fall for Hafizh Syahrin as the Malaysian rider crashed at turn one.

After exiting pit lane with just 30 seconds to go in order to do a practice start, Rea instead suffered a fall at turn seven.

Magny-Cours WorldSBK records

Fastest Lap - Jonathan Rea GBR Kawasaki Racing Team 1:35.683s (2021) 

2021 Race Winners 

Race 1 - Toprak Razgatlioglu TUR Pata Yamaha 

Superpole Race - Jonathan Rea GBR Kawasaki Racing Team 

Race 2 - Toprak Razgatlioglu TUR Pata Yamaha 

Rea tops wet Magny-Cours WorldSBK FP2

Rea finished day-one of the French WorldSBK round at Magny-Cours fastest as championship leader Bautista crashed late on before moving up to fourth. 

While FP1 might have been changeable conditions, FP2 was far from that as heavy rain led to a very wet Magny-Cours circuit. 

With most of the riders choosing to remain in pit lane, Iker Lecuona was first to brave the conditions and set a flying lap. 

 A time of 1:58.885s was set by Lecuona before Axel Bassani went quickest with a time two seconds clear of the Honda rider. 

Over 20 seconds off the type of lap times that would be expected in the dry, Bassani continued to lead the way after improving once again. 

There was a big crash for Garrett Gerloff at turn 12 as the American suffered a highside. Moments later and it was the turn of Luca Bernardi to come unstuck at turn 13. 

The last two riders to set a flying lap, Razgatlioglu and Rea both exited pit lane with just under half the session remaining. 

Wasting no time in finding his rhythm, Rea went third fastest on his opening lap while Razgatlioglu was only 17th. 

Before having a chance to show his potential in the wet, Razgatlioglu had to abandon his next lap as a red flag was deployed due to a piece of Gerloff’s GRT Yamaha remaining on circuit. 

As the green flags waved to get FP2 back underway, Rea and Alvaro Bautista found immediate improvements in order to go six tenths down on Bassani.

Rea, who was only 19th in FP1, went quickest after setting a time of 1:50.004s which was just +0.004s clear of Bassani.

With FP2 seemingly coming to an uneventful end, Bautista then suffered a big hit on his right side after losing the front at the penultimate corner. The Spaniard was back on his feet immediately. 

Despite losing one of his winglets, Bautista headed back out on track for the final few minutes and even improved his lap time to go fourth quickest.

Magny-Cours WorldSBK Weekend Schedule 

Saturday 

Free Practice 3: 08:00-08:30

Superpole: 10:10-10:25 

Race 1: 13:00 

Sunday 

Warm-Up: 08:00-08:15

Race 2: 13:00

Lowes quickest in Magny-Cours WorldSBK FP1

As rain began to fall with less than five minutes of FP1 in the books, Michael Ruben Rinaldi, who admitted news regarding his WorldSBK future will come after the French round, crashed at turn five. 

Prior to that, reigning WorldSBK champion Razgatlioglu had a scare on the approach to the final chicane but still managed to come across the line fastest before Lowes went to the top of the leaderboard. 

Much heavier rain followed on the next lap which resulted in every rider returning to pit lane. 

Despite bright sunshine soon breaking through, the Magny-Cours circuit was taking a long time to dry before Rinaldi braved the conditions with 18 minutes to go.

The Italian was then joined on-track by team-mate and championship leader Bautista. 

Although not the conditions riders would have wanted, the wet track provided a chance for much of the field to test Pirelli’s new wet front tyre. 

One of those was Jonathan Rea who failed to set a lap time in dry conditions, thus resulting in the Kawasaki rider being way down the order. 

Joining Rinaldi in crashing at turn five, Andrea Locatelli lost the front-end of his Yamaha R1 at the right-hander.  

There was early drama for home favourite Lucas Mahias as the former 2017 WorldSSP champion pulled off-track with a technical issue aboard his Puccetti Kawasaki.