Althea BMW riders Markus Reiterberger and Jordi Torres ended Day 1 in fifth and sixth place at Imola to qualify straight through to Superpole 2.

The Althea pairing used the first half of the hour-long first session to get to grips with the track and build confidence, before during the second half of the session, Reiterberger was able to make a good step with a best of 1’48. Spanish rider Jordi completed the session right behind his teammate thanks to a time of 1’48.880.

 During the afternoon, both Althea BMW riders were able to make significant progress, identifying an effective set-up for their BMW S1000 RR bikes. Times dropped dramatically, with the pair lapping almost a second quicker than during the morning, to set respective best times of 1’47.949 (Reiterberger) and 1’48.077 (Torres), closing in fifth and sixth place and easily qualifying for tomorrow’s Tissot-Superpole 2 session.

“I’m pleased,” said Reiterberger. “I’m really enjoying riding the bike here and fifth place is a good result for day one. The lap times are not so bad either; we’ve completed a decent long run and I was pretty happy with the pace. Then with new tyres and small change to the set-up, I was also able to set a good fast lap. It took me a little time this morning to find a good feeling with the track, and the bike, as I haven’t been here since 2012 but I’m feeling good, also because I think we still have room for improvement tomorrow.”

“At this point of the championship, we’re trying to find the bike’s limit, having accumulated a lot of information over previous weekends,” added Torres. “Let’s say that we’re making lots of very small changes to improve the bike. This afternoon, I felt more confident and could push harder, which allowed me to set a fast time. There are still points of the track where we can improve, through the Variante Alta and Variante Bassa for example, because I struggle, with my particular riding style, with the changes of direction through the tight turns.”

Both riders will be out again at 8:45am local time (GMT +2) on Saturday, for the last fifteen minutes of practice ahead of Tissot-Superpole.