Sam Lowes stays on top as official test draws to an end
World Supersport teams have completed today the second and last official testing day at Phillip Island, prior to the Season Opener that is taking place the upcoming weekend. Despite the temperature fall and the cloudy skies above the circuit, Sam Lowes (Yakhnich Motorsport Yamaha) was able to drop 0.443 seconds off his Day 1 best lap time to top the timesheets at the end of the morning session.
The rider from Lincoln has put a 0.181 gap between himself and second placed Kenan Sofuoglu (Mahi Racing Team India Kawasaki), with Gabor Talmacsi (Prorace Honda), Fabien Foret (Mahi Racing Team India Kawasaki) and Vladimir Leonov (Yakhnich Motorsport Yamaha) to follow.
The session was red flagged with 30 minutes to go due to technical problems occurred to Sheridan Morais' PTR Honda CBR600RR, and after the restart a quick rain shower passed through. The surface dried up quickly thanks to the brand-new asphalt, allowing the riders to spent the last 10 minutes on track.
Lowes was able to further improve his best lap-time up to a remarkable 1'33.076 - almost 8 tenths of a second quicker than the best lap - that helped him finish as fastest of the whole test for the Supersport class. Mahi Racing Team India placed Kenan Sofuoglu and Fabien Foret in 2nd and 3rd place respectively, not far time-wise from the leader despite a technical problem for the Frenchman towards the end.
Michael van der Mark (Pata Honda World Supersport) was able to climb up to 4th place at his last attempt before the chequered flag was waved. The Dutch rider finished ahead of David Salom (Intermoto Ponyexpres Kawasaki), Gabor Talmacsi (Prorace Honda) and Vladimir Leonov (Yakhnich Motorsport Yamaha).
Austrian's David Linortner (Team Honda PTR) crashed out of turn 12 halfway through the afternoon session, while Eduard Blokhin (Rivamoto Honda) fell off his CBR600RR with 12 minutes to go before the end of the test.
