Superbike Misano, Race 2: Complicated day for the Althea BMW team

Superbike, Pirelli Riviera di Rimini Round, Race 2. Although the premises were positive, with the fifth and sixth places of Torres and Reiterberger in the first race and the second time of De Rosa in the STK1000 qualifying, Team Althea BMW found itself having to manage a complicated day at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli , theater of the eighth stage of the World Championship.

During the first lap of Race 2, at turn eight Markus Reiterberger was the victim of a bad fall which violently knocked him off the bike: the German rider was able to leave the track on his own legs, but was immediately in great pain transported to the Circuit Medical Center and subsequently to the Riccione hospital for more in-depth tests.
Unfortunately, the x-rays revealed a compression fracture to the D12 vertebra which will force him to miss the Laguna Seca round, scheduled for 8 to 10 July.
Jordi Torres instead finished the race in seventh place, overtaken with two laps to go by Nicky Hayden who ended up sixth.

Ninth went better in Superstock1000, where De Rosa, thanks to a good pace and a series of fast laps, engaged in an exciting duel with race leader Mercado, who he managed to overtake on the seventh lap.
The fight, however, continued until the last lap, until the two drivers collided disastrously, ending up on the escape route and wasting precious points for the championship.
De Rosa managed to get up to finish in 19th position.
At the end of the race, the two drivers were called by the Race Direction who imposed a penalty on the Althea team driver amounting to two points on the license and three penalty positions on the starting grid of the next race, which will be the French one at Magny Cours given that only WorldSbk races at Laguna Seca.
Mercado was instead given a simple fine: Team Althea appealed but the Race Direction confirmed the sanctions.

After eight rounds, Torres is seventh in the general classification with 137 points, Reiterberger is now 12th with 68.
BMW maintains fourth position in the manufacturers' ranking with 147 points, as does the Althea BMW team in the team standings, with 205 points.

“I can honestly say that I am happier today than yesterday. I'm sorry I crashed in the warm-up. An unexpected slip, but fortunately nothing serious happened” – he commented Jordi Torres – “Right in the warm-up we tried a different tire which seemed more stable and therefore we opted for two different tires for the second heat compared to those used yesterday. We took this risk but it gave me a better feeling. We started the race quite well but after the first laps I noticed, after almost risking a fall, that the tire gave more support, but at the same time also offered a little less grip. All in all I'm satisfied with how today went, because we were right to take that risk and the path turned out to be the right one."

"What can I say? I'm sorry that today's race ended due to a contact between me and Mercado. I am very disappointed and angry because victory was clearly within our reach” – he said Raffaele De Rosa – “We had worked effectively all weekend and were confident we could win. I thank my team who worked very well, as always. We will come back stronger than ever after the summer break.”