World Supersport championship leader Kenan Sofuoglu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) topped the opening day’s on track activity leading the way thanks to his 1.41.660s which he set in the morning session.

Behind the Turk, who could wrap up his 4th WSS title on Sunday, results depending, was a confident and fast Lucas Mahias who closed to within 0.091s aboard his MG Competition Yamaha.

3rd overall on the combined times was PJ Jacobsen (CORE Motorsport Thailand), the American suffering a front end crash with 17 minutes of the session remaining. Great work by the team ensured he made it back on track, losing only a few minutes.

Positions 4th to 6th were taken by Kyle Smith (Pata Honda World Supersport Team), Lorenzo Zanetti (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) and recently married Alex Baldolini (Race Department ATK#25).

Marco Faccani (San Carlo Puccetti Racing) was 7th ahead of Nico Terol (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) who continues his WSS adaption, the Spanish rider ending the day 8th ahead of Roberto Rolfo (Team Lorini) and Kevin Wahr who recovered from an early FP1 technical problem to round out the top ten.

Gino Rea (CIA Landlords Insurance Honda) suffered a huge crash in FP1 when running 3rd. The Englishman was sat in leathers in his garage throughout FP2 as his team raced against the clock to repair his machine. Running out of time he will have to wait until FP3 to show his true potential. He ended the day 11th overall courtesy of his morning time.

There were some eye catching performances from a number of ‘wildcard’ and ‘one event’ riders, WSS debutants Xavi Pinsach (Team Lorini) and Estonian Hannes Soomer who is riding for Kallio Racing) finished day one in 17th and 20th respectively.

Tomorrow’s sole qualifying session will begin at 1555 local time.

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