Having dominated the headlines in the run up to Round 5 of the 2023 WorldSBK Championship at Misano, Toprak Razgatlioglu kept his name in lights in FP1 to head up the timesheets on Friday morning.

In a session largely dominated by the Pata Yamaha rider and Aruba.it duo Michael Ruben Rinaldi and championship leader Alvaro Bautista, while it was the former of the Ducati Panigale V4 R riders that led into the closing stages, Razgatlioglu snatched the initiative late on.

A sure sign from the 2021 WorldSBK Champion that off-track talk won't affect on-track commitments with Yamaha, he ended FP1 with a comfortable two tenths margin over Rinaldi, with Bautista - the winner in 11 of the season's 12 races thus far - seven hundredths further back in third.

A strong start to the day all round for the Yamaha contingent, GYTR GTR representative Dominique Aegerter completed the 45mins session in fourth. Though six tenths down on the top time, it did place him ahead of factory stablemate Andrea Locatelli, the Italian completing the top five.

Alex Lowes led the Kawasaki challenge in sixth position as he and KRT team-mate Jonathan Rea sandwiched the best of the BMW riders, Garrett Gerloff, in seventh place.

The two works HRC Hondas rounded out the top ten, Xavi Vierge getting the edge over Iker Lecuona, with Scott Redding in 11th, the Briton making a modest opening gambit in his bid to cling onto his ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK seat for 2024.

Elsewhere, Tom Sykes enjoyed a competitive start to his factory BMW return, the 2013 WorldSBK Champion posting identical lap times to new team-mate Redding, while Bradley Ray's first visit to Misano on a Superbike saw him open up in 19th.

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