Afternoon track temperatures that almost broke through the 50°C barrier delivered relatively little grip as Gerloff lapped the 3.768km long Cremona Circuit on his Ninja ZX-10RR during FP2.

Despite the rising track temperatures - well up from 35°C in the opening FP1 session on Friday morning - Gerloff and his crew found a small improvement in pace during FP2.

With all the data from Friday’s two free practice sessions now being analysed by the team, there will be one more free practice session, on Saturday 3 May, for Garrett and his crew to make an even greater step forward in their race set-up before championship points become available.

Saturday will feature the first of two 23-lap WorldSBK races to be held at Cremona, with Sunday 4 May hosting the short ten-lap Superpole race and then a final 23-lap Race Two.  

Garrett Gerloff stated: “It was a bit warm on Friday at Cremona and that means there was not a ton of grip on the track surface. We are working as a team to try and find solutions to our problems. Little-by-little we are working through it and we just need a better day tomorrow.”