Encouraging Friday for Bridewell at Misano despite early challenges

The 2026 Superbike World Championship continues this weekend at Italy’s Misano World Circuit “Marco Simoncelli”. As this seventh round of the season got underway today, Superbike Advocates Racing rider Tommy Bridewell completed the first free practice sessions in an encouraging eleventh position.

Having benefitted from two days of track time during a test at Misano just a month ago, Bridewell was eager to hit the ground running in FP1. The British rider put in a total of seventeen laps as he worked with his technicians to iron out a few small issues that arose during the course of this initial 45-minute session. Having placed eighteenth with a time of 1’34.196, the SBK rookie was hungry for more in the day’s second session.

Back out for FP2, which ran in higher temperatures, Bridewell was quick to take a step in the right direction. Soon improving on his earlier reference, Tommy moved up into the provisional top ten. The team’s technicians worked hard to resolve the earlier issues and allow their rider to lap more comfortably. Finding another six tenths with respect to FP1, Tommy completed the session in eleventh place overall with a time of 1’33.518.

Tommy Bridewell (Superbike Advocates Racing #46)
“Today was not so bad. We had a tough morning, with a few issues on the bike that hampered my riding in FP1. But I guess that’s all part of a race weekend. The team worked to diagnose those issues, and I was able to ride a lot better in FP2. But I still feel a little ‘behind the bike’ and would like to find something that allows me to feel more fluid in my riding. We’ll analyse the data and try to work out what we’re missing for tomorrow. If we can unlock another three or four tenths, we’ll be in a better position for sure.

This is a complex track, and my only experience here was a day and a half of testing a month ago, which isn’t really enough. So we take the positives, in that if we’re where we are now after just one test, then hopefully we can make progress over the course of the weekend.”