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It was the second free practice session at Jerez de la Frontera and, after a morning spent re-familiarizing themselves with the track and looking for the best setup on their bikes, the best SBK riders were back at the top of the lap time sheets.
Tom Sykes was the fastest of them all with a time of 1’41”739 astride his Kawasaki ZX10 that reached a top speed of 270 km/h on the straight opposite the one in front of pit lane. Tom demonstrated a better pace than that of his rivals and his best lap is just one of the many flying laps the Brit put on the sheets.
Second time went to Chaz Davies with his Ducati Panigale at a very tight gap behind Sykes, just 38 thousandths of a second, and a few kph faster at top speed before the violent braking section at the end of the longest straight.
Alex Lowes did well in practice, third with a time of 1’41”804 and the Yamaha rider’s gap behind the leader was also quite narrow, just 65 thousandths.
The other times on the sheets demonstrate a very balanced playing field: Michael Van Der Mark, fourth on his Honda CBR, Xavi Fores astride his privateer Ducati, Sylvain Guintoli with the Pata R1, Nicky Hayden on his Ten Kate Honda, Leon Camier astride his MV Agusta and Johnny Rea, ninth on the factory ZX10R, are all within a very narrow gap, with just 359 thousandths separating the defending world champion and his teammate.
In fact, from Davide Giugliano’s tenth time on, the gaps are considerable: more than six tenths for the Italian Ducati rider, more than seven tenths of a gap for Torres with his BMW and Lorenzo Savadori, twelfth astride his Aprilia RSV4 at a time of 1’42”480, is almost seven and a half tenths to make up on Sykes.
His teammate, Alex De Angelis, finished the session in fifteenth place. The rider from San Marino was trailing Reiterberger on his BMW and West with his Kawasaki.
From Joshua Brookes, sixteenth with the only Milwaukee BMW on the track and a gap of more than one second, times began to rise, as did the gap behind the leader. The last name on the list is Czech rider Karel Pesek on his Yamaha, making his début today. For the brother of the more famous Lukas, it was definitely an uphill start.
In the Supersport category, Swiss rider Krummenacher managed to respond to his Turkish teammate Sofuoglu, riding his Kawasaki ZX6R to finish with the best time at 1’44”292, an advantage of 173 thousandths ahead of the defending world champion. Team Puccetti is still the team to beat, whereas Niki Tuuli is in third place with Mika Kallio’s Yamaha R6 and Axel Bassani was the best Italian with his fourth best time. Zaccone, Caricasulo and Canducci also did well, respectively seventh, eighth and ninth.
In Superstock1000, Argentinian Leandro Mercado put the best time of the afternoon session on the sheets at 1’43”496, making it clear that on Sunday he will be trying for the win with his Ducati Panigale, without making any calculations on the overall standings. Behind Mercado was Maximilian Scheib and, behind the BMW rider came a fleet of Italians: Rinaldi, Tamburini, Russo and Nocco. On his Althea BMW, Raffaele De Rosa, Mercado’s rival for the title, finished his sessions with the eighth best time at a second behind the Argentinian’s Ducati.
