The Pirelli Dutch Round proved to be a difficult one in the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship for Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) at the iconic TT Circuit Assen with a best result of tenth for the factory Ducati rider. After a strong start to the season with two podiums in the first round and fighting for victory in Indonesia, Rinaldi’s Dutch Round was what he described as “really, really tough”.

Rinaldi was 14^th in Friday’s Free Practice 1 session and more than a second slower than teammate Alvaro Bautista who led the times. In Free Practice 2, he was in 16^th place but only completed three timed laps due to technical issues on his Panigale V4 R as he lost out on the majority of the 45-minute session. Despite limited running, his best time of Friday came in FP2 when he posted a 1’35.517s. With Saturday’s Free Practice 3 session held in damp conditions, Rinaldi was unable to use this time to prepare properly for dry races which all three were in the end.

Rinaldi find a bit more time in Saturday’s Tissot Superpole session as he set a 1’34.488s but this put him 16^th on the grid for Race 1 and the Tissot Superpole Race. He finished those races in 15^th and 13^th respectively, meaning he would start Race 2 from 16^th after not being able to secure a top-nine finish in the shortened eight-lap Superpole Race. He started strongly in Race 2 but dropped back in the 21-lap race before securing tenth place, his best finish of the weekend.

Reviewing the weekend, Rinaldi said: “It’s been a really, really tough weekend for us. We started Friday FP1 without the best feeling but sometimes this happens. Our plan was to find a solution during the weekend, but we were unlucky because, in FP2, after one lap my bike stopped with a technical issue. I couldn’t do my practice so the things we wanted to try, we couldn’t. We needed a normal FP3 but we faced wet conditions so we couldn’t try what we thought was good. Our practice was Race 1. I didn’t have the feeling with the bike so the solution we thought with the team didn’t work. Sunday was Practice 2, basically. I improved my time in the race. It could’ve been good for a top five on Saturday. I just think many things didn’t go in the right way.”

There is some solace for Rinaldi to come in that the next two circuits that WorldSBK visits are circuits he has won at. Next up is the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, where he won Race 2 in 2021, followed by the Misano World Circuit “Marco Simoncelli” a few weeks later; he won two races on home soil at Misano in 2021. Barcelona is also a circuit where Ducati have tested recently and Rinaldi showed some strong pace.

Looking forwards to the upcoming rounds, Rinaldi said: “I know our potential. I have no doubt that we can be there in the next rounds. I must understand with the team what happened today and this weekend because we must be quicker to adjust the setting of the bike. Like this, we missed points and the chance to fight for the top three in the Championship. We must be there. Even if we have problems during weekends, we cannot lose that much time to get back on time.”

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