{"id":494553,"date":"2026-02-21T11:25:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T11:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/494553\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T11:25:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T11:25:12","slug":"2026-australian-worldsbk-crash-net","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/494553\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Australian WorldSBK: | Crash.net"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Results from the opening Superpole session of 2026 at the Australian WorldSBK at Phillip Island.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/wsbk\/racer\/1043899\/nicolo-bulega\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nicolo Bulega<\/a> opened the season with a pole position, finishing over 0.4 seconds ahead of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/wsbk\/racer\/1044087\/yari-montella\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Yari Montella<\/a> while <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/wsbk\/racer\/1044091\/sam-lowes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sam Lowes<\/a> completed a Ducati front row lockout. For Bulega, he has still not been beaten in a session this week, including the test on Monday and Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Alex Lowes and Axel Bassani put both Bimotas on the second row ahead of Danilo Petrucci on the lead BMW. Petrucci&#8217;s teammate, Miguel Oliveira, crashed on his first flying lap at turn two and was unable to set a time despite being able to get the bike back to the pits.<\/p>\n<p>Row three sees the returning Lorenzo Baldassarri ahead of Kawasaki&#8217;s Garrett Gerloff and the sole Yamaha in the top-10, that of Xavi Vierge.<\/p>\n<p>Alberto Surra also qualified in the top-10 on his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/wsbk\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">World Superbike<\/a> debut in 10th. He&#8217;ll be alongside fellow satellite Ducati riders Tarran Mackenzie and Alvaro Bautista on row four for Race 1.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Iker Lecuona qualified 13th on his factory Ducati debut, while Andrea Locatelli&#8217;s difficult weekend continues: 15th for the Italian and 1.5 seconds off the pace of Bulega.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-center\">2026 World Superbike Championship | 2026 Australian Round | Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit | Superpole | Result<\/p>\n<p>PosRiderNat.WorldSBK TeamSuperbikeTiming1Nicolo BulegaITAAruba.it Racing DucatiDucati Panigale V4 R1:28.2442Yari MontellaITABarni Spark RacingDucati Panigale V4 R1:28.6633Sam LowesGBRMarc VDS Racing TeamDucati Panigale V4 R1:28.7294Alex LowesGBRBimota by Kawasaki Racing TeamBimota KB9981:28.9435Axel BassaniITABimota by Kawasaki Racing TeamBimota KB9981:28.9726Danilo PetrucciITAROKiT BMW MotorradBMW M1000 RR1:29.0497Lorenzo BaldassarriITATeam Go ElevenDucati Panigale V4 R1:29.1918Garrett GerloffUSAKawasaki WorldSBK TeamKawasaki ZX-10RR1:29.2379Xavi ViergeESPPata Maxus YamahaYamaha R11:29.24510Alberto SurraITAMotocorsa RacingDucati Panigale V4 R1:29.28711Tarran MackenzieGBRMGM Optical Express RacingDucati Panigale V4 R1:29.33312Alvaro BautistaESPBarni Spark RacingDucati Panigale V4 R1:29.36313Iker LecuonaESPAruba.it Racing DucatiDucati Panigale V4 R1:29.37414Remy GardnerAUSGYTR GRT YamahaYamaha R11:29.43515Andrea LocatelliITAPata Maxus YamahaYamaha R11:29.76016Tetsuta NagashimaJPNHonda HRCHonda CBR1000RR-R1:29.98617Ryan VickersGBRHonda HRCHonda CBR1000RR-R1:30.04618Stefano ManziITAGYTR GRT YamahaYamaha R11:30.38019Bahattin SofuogluTURMotoxracing YamahaYamaha R11:30.50020Mattia RatoITAMotoxracing YamahaYamaha R11:30.97721Miguel OliveiraPORROKiT BMW MotorradBMW M1000 RRNo Time Set<\/p>\n<p>Official Phillip Island WorldSBK Records:<br \/>Best lap: Nicolo Bulega, Ducati, 1m27.916s (2024)<br \/>Fastest race lap: Nicolo Bulega, Ducati, 1m28.564s (2024)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Results from the opening Superpole session of 2026 at the Australian WorldSBK at Phillip Island. Nicolo Bulega opened&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40,113816],"class_list":{"0":"post-494553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories","14":"tag-world-superbikes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}