‘Almost’ a perfect home weekend for double race winner Rinaldi

Michael Rinaldi enjoyed the most successful WorldSBK weekend of his career to date following two wins and a second at Misano.

It looked like three from three was possible for Rinaldi, which would have put him in decorated company alongside only Jonathan Rea and Alvaro Bautista in taking a hat-trick of wins.

And while Rinaldi started from pole and not fourth as he did for both his race wins, the Italian was unable to fend off Toprak Razgatlioglu. 

The Ducati rider bettered Razgatlioglu just a couple of hours prior during the Superpole race with a race winning overtake at Curvone, however, it was this same part of track where Razgatlioglu set-up his move on Rinaldi in race two. 

But given Rinaldi’s struggles particularly in Aragon just three weeks ago, this was an impressive return to form for the 26 year-old. 

Speaking after Sunday’s final race, Rinaldi said: “I’m really happy! Not perfect, but almost! Sincerely, this afternoon Toprak [Razgatlioglu] had a better pace. 

“I tried my best, but my best wasn’t enough to win. It was easy to make a mistake, easy to crash, and the last four laps I said to myself, ‘it’s okay to be second, I hate to arrive second, but it’s okay’.

“Sincerely, I improve my confidence with the bike. We are not 100% yet because I miss something and we are not able to fix the problem on entry to the corner. 

“If you see the race, Toprak is much faster there so we need to improve this area. But for sure we made a good step forward compared to the first races.”