News

Rea sets the benchmark ahead of Tissot-Superpole

Saturday, 6 June 2015 09:44 GMT

    • Tissot-Superpole in Portugal set to be a thriller.

    With temperatures once again soaring at the Portuguese circuit of Portimao, this morning’s Free Practice 3 saw 21 riders improve their times from yesterday as the slightly cooler track made for an exciting session in which the final top ten classified riders were only decided in the final moments.

    Fastest in FP1 but 2nd overall yesterday Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) returned to the top with the smallest advantage over the 2nd and 3rd placed riders,  Davide Giugliano (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati SBK Team) and Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team). The top 3 covered by 0.050s.

    The Aprilia Racing Team – Red Devils duo of Jordi Torres and Leon Haslam were only a whisker behind the leading three, 0.243s and 0.347s respectively.

    Chaz Davies on the second factory Aruba.it Racing Ducati was classified as 6th overall. The British rider was on course for a potential fastest lap before a small crash at turn 7.

    Ayrton Badovini (BMW Motorrad Italia) and Matteo Baiocco (Althea Racing) were 7th and 8th, with Sylvain Guintoli (Pata Honda World Superbike Team) and David Salom (Team Pedercini) completing a top ten that was covered by 0.871s.

    Leandro Mercado (Barni Racing) was looking strong in the early stages before a technical problem prevented any further improvement. The Argentine rider dropped from 7th with 20 minutes to go to 11th, missing out on the automatic Superpole 2 start by 0.001s. He in turn was 0.004s ahead of the twelfth placed rider Leon Camier (MV Agusta Reparto Corse).

    Michael van der Mark (Pata Honda World Superbike Team), Alex Lowes (Voltcom Crescent Suzuki), and Roman Ramos were 13th to 15th while Santiago Barragan (Grillini SBK Team) was 20th and will take part in Superpole 1 along with all of the riders placed 11th to 20th.

    This afternoon’s Tissot-Superpole qualifying sessions are scheduled to take place at 1500 local time with the first 2 riders from Superpole 1 progressing to join the top ten riders who made it through automatically courtesy of being inside the top ten after the three combined Free Practices.

    To read yesterday’s FP2 report please click here.