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One year later we got the opportunity to see another Superbike rider in action at Sepang. While last year it was Alvaro Bautista, in action on the test team's Ducati GP23, last weekend it was the turn of Andrea Iannone, called in to replace Fabio Di Giannantonio riding the Pertamina VR46 team's GP23.
At the end of the weekend, The Maniac finished Sunday's race in 17th position 47"599 from the winner, namely Pecco Bagnaia. Post-race Andrea told the media present in the press room, "It was really tiring to face these 19 laps. By lap five my arms were hurting, I went into survival mode the whole race basically. One lap I was doing it slow, one I was pushing, then slow again and pushing again. The goal was to finish the race, in the end I was 15 seconds quicker than Bautista last year more or less on the same bike, plus he had a chance to test it while I packed from Jerez and came here. My yardstick has to be that, not Bagnaia."
The words uttered by the rider from Vasto did not go down at all well with Alvaro, who on X promptly responded to what the 29 claimed yesterday: "Mother of mine, luckily there are the times. Actually he was exactly 2 minutes faster than me - with one lap less. If you take away one lap from my time, to do 19 like he did, I was 3 seconds faster and I was also injured."
If Andrea says he was 15 seconds faster than Alvaro, the latter claims to have been 3 seconds better. So we ask ourselves: which of the two is telling the truth?
At Sepang Iannone completed his race in 38'52"162 while last year Bautista finished in 40'52"701. However, there is one thing to note: in 2023 there were 20 laps to be disputed, while this year there were 19, following the incident involving Miller, Quartararo and Binder during the first round.
Should we go and take away Bautista's last lap in last year's race, which was 2'03"218, the Spaniard would have completed the 19 laps in 38'49"487, which is three seconds better as he claims on social media.
Making a comparison between the two, however, is a waste of time, because there are so many variables at stake. Unlike Alvaro, Andrea Iannone showed up in Sepang without ever having ridden a single lap on the MotoGP, as if it were a poker in the dark. He therefore had to race against time to prepare, to know all the mechanisms, including the lowering device, to be ready. In addition, as he himself pointed out, his physical preparation certainly put him to the test over the course of the race weekend. Indeed, confirming The Maniac's words are the timesheets because at the start of the race he was faster than Bautista: in fact, Iannone has a personal best of 2'01"001 against Alvaro's 2'01"608.
For sure, the physical component had quite an effect in the conduct of the race.
Speaking of the physical component: for sure, Bautista did a good six days of testing before the race, certainly arriving ready with a Ducati Factory bike, but on race weekend he suffered a C6-C7 cervical hernia and a C5-C6 disc protrusion as a result of the nasty injury sustained in October's Jerez test. No small injury, which the #19 carried with him until the Assen Superbike race in late April.
In short: who did better between Alvaro and Andrea? We don't feel like naming either one or the other because there are countless variables in the field. Therefore we'll leave it for you to decide with all the elements we put on the table.
As far as we can tell, compared to last year, this MotoGP has proven once again that it has raised the bar, also thanks to the development of the tires. For more information just look at qualifying, where Andrea achieved 1'58"183 while Alvaro 1'59"418, which is almost one second and three tenths faster. This year Bagnaia took pole in 1'56"337 while last year he couldn't do any better than 1'57"491, or one second faster.
