Scorching Conditions Welcome Pata Maxus Yamaha to Misano in Friday Free Practice
Summer arrived on the Adriatic Coast today as Andrea Locatelli and Jonathan Rea got to work for Pata Maxus Yamaha in Round 6 of the 2025 FIM Superbike World Championship at Misano World Circuit in Italy.
Track temperatures approaching 50 degrees Celsius and an air temperature of 30 degrees signalled the first real hot conditions of the season, as the WorldSBK field started its race weekend preparation in earnest during Friday Free Practice.
Italian home hopeful Locatelli is aiming to put on a show for the many #55 fans in attendance once again, and completed a solid day of work to finish seventh overall on outright lap time. He felt comfortable on his Yamaha R1 WorldSBK, looking to take a measured approach with the knowledge that the hot conditions will play a big part of the main feature-length races on Saturday and Sunday.
Teammate Jonathan Rea was unfortunately side-lined for much of Free Practice 1 this morning due to an electrical fault, but a monumental effort from the crew got the #65 rider back out to ensure the issue was fixed before the end of the session. Conditions in the afternoon were also difficult to manage, but his crew and Yamaha’s engineers are looking at solutions to enable “JR” to deliver a fighting performance from tomorrow morning.
The first race day of the weekend starts with Free Practice 3 at 9:00 CEST, Superpole qualifying at 11:00 and the 21-lap Race 1 at 14:00.
FULL FREE PRACTICE RESULTS
Andrea Locatelli: P7 – 1’33.748
“Basically, I think we did a great job – especially this afternoon in the hot conditions. I am happy with the balance of the bike and I feel comfortable on my R1. For sure, we are still missing something and we need to try to improve to close a bit the gap to the top but we are not completely far away. With respect to the test, the conditions are quite different but the feeling with the bike and the work that we did during the test was good. Let’s try to make another step for tomorrow, make a good qualifying because it is important here – and then we have 21 laps fighting with the hot track and warm air temperature, so it will be quite difficult for sure. But, we know we can manage well – so keep looking forward and I believe that we can do a great job tomorrow.”
Jonathan Rea: P18 – 1’34.437
“Tough start to my day which put us on the back foot because we had a technical problem in the morning that kept me in the box. Fortunately, the mechanics worked incredibly hard and I was able to get a lap at the end of the session to verify the bike was ok and give us some confidence to move on in the afternoon. Unfortunately, FP2 we didn’t make much progress with the set-up as temperatures rose and the track felt different, a bit greasy, and I really struggled with a lot of chatter and understeer. It was hard to be precise, I couldn’t stop like I want to and be on the correct part of the circuit. I tried to take a wheel to understand what other riders were doing, but the more I tried, the worse it got. Definitely room for improvement tomorrow and very disappointed with today.”
