Magny-Cours World Superbike FP3 results: Bautista rockets to top spot

Results from Free Practice 3, round nine of the 2023 World Superbike championship at Magny-Cours, France.

09 Sep 2023

Alvaro Bautista, Ducati WorldSBK Magny-Cours 2023

After his big highside in FP1, Axel Bassani encountered technical issues at the beginning of final practice.

While the Italian made a swift return to pit lane, work on Honda’s new chassis was continuing for Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge.

At the top of the leaderboard was Alex Lowes who led a Kawasaki 1-2 ahead of Jonathan Rea.

Lowes then went even faster as he set the quickest lap of the weekend to extend his lead by over two tenths from Garrett Gerloff.

Alvaro Bautista then overhauled the two factory Kawasaki riders as he began to show his true potential. A lap time of 1:36.823s was set by the world champion.

After finding another two tenths on his best time, Bautista then had to play second best to Gerloff who found a blinding 1:36.322s.

As the fast laps continued to come in, Michael Rinaldi went second ahead of Rea who also found a heap of time over his previous best effort.

A statement was then made by Bautista as his last lap saw him fire his Panigale V4 R to top spot with a sub 1m 36s time.

2023 World Superbike Magny-Cours, France - Free Practice (3) Results
Pos	Rider	Nat	Team	Time
1	Alvaro Bautista	SPA	Aruba.It Racing Ducati	1:35.895s
2	Garrett Gerloff	USA	Bonovo Action BMW	+0.427s
3	Michael Ruben Rinaldi	ITA	Aruba.It Racing Ducati	+0.536s
4	Jonathan Rea	GBR	Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK	+0.673s
5	Scott Redding	GBR	ROKIT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team	+0.790s
6	Danilo Petrucci	ITA	Barni Spark Racing Team	+0.931s
7	Alex Lowes	GBR	Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK	+0.947s
8	Remy Gardner	AUS	GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team	+0.970s
9	Philipp Oettl	GER	GoEleven Ducati	+0.992s
10	Dominique Aegerter	SWI	GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team	+1.084s
11	Toprak Razgatlioglu	TUR	Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK	+1.230s
12	Andrea Locatelli	ITA	Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK	+1.259s
13	Iker Lecuona	SPA	Team HRC WorldSBK	+1.345s
14	Loris Baz	FRA	Bonovo Action BMW	+1.475s
15	Lorenzo Baldassarri	ITA	GMT94 Yamaha	+1.906s
16	Michael Van Der Mark	NED	ROKIT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team	+2.021s
17	Xavi Vierge	SPA	Team HRC WorldSBK	+2.158s
18	Hannes Soomer	EST	PETRONAS MIE Racing HONDA Racing	+2.869s
19	Isaac Vinales	SPA	TPR by Vinales Racing	+3.034s
20	Hafizh Syahrin	MAL	PETRONAS MIE Racing HONDA Racing	+3.131s
21	Lucas Mahias	FRA	Puccetti Kawasaki	+3.210s
22	Oliver Konig	CZE	Orelac Racing Kawasaki	+3.430s
23	Bradley Ray	GBR	Motoxracing Yamaha WorldSBK Team	+7.344s
24	Axel Bassani	ITA	Motocorsa Ducati	No Time Set

Magny-Cours WorldSBK record

Fastest lap - Jonathan Rea GBR Kawasaki Racing Team 1:36.374s

2022 Race Winners

Race 1 - Alvaro Bautista SPA Aruba.it Ducati

Superpole Race - Toprak Razgatlioglu TUR Pata Yamaha

Race 2 - Toprak Razgatlioglu TUR Pata Yamaha

Despite the new chassis, Honda's diffficult weekend continued as Lecuona and Vierge were unable to finish inside the top ten.

Magny-Cours weekend schedule (UK time)

Friday

Free Practice 1 - 09:30-10:15

Free Practice 2 - 14:00-14:45

Saturday

Free Practice 3 - 08:00-08:30

Superpole - 10:10-10:25

Race 1 - 13:00

Sunday

Warm-up - 08:00-08:15

Superpole Race - 10:00

Race 2 - 14:15

Our specialist in British and World Superbikes. Robert covers the Toprak Razgatlioglu vs Jonathan Rea rivalry in all its gory detail - just don’t ask him which bike racing championship is the most exciting…