Aragon WSBK: Bautista maintains dominance in Friday practices
Ducati's Alvaro Bautista continued to dominate the World Superbike field in the two Friday practices at Aragon, topping the sessions by 1.1s and 0.5s respectively.
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Bautista spent most of both practices in first place, both sessions held in damp conditions with drops of rain reported, and topped them with nearly identical times, ending the day with a 1m49.607s.
His closest challenger on both occasions was Yamaha's Alex Lowes, the Briton significantly closing the gap in FP2, but still ending up with a sizable 0.519s difference.
Kawasaki rider Jonathan Rea was third in both sessions and was just two hundredths of a second slower than Lowes.
BMW's Tom Sykes brought a fourth different bike into the top four - he was black-flagged in FP2 for not pulling into the pits following a crash, but was allowed to carry on just four minutes later.
In fifth, Eugene Laverty (GoEleven) was Bautista's closest challenger within the Ducati camp as his teammate Chaz Davies continued to struggle, going 1.3s slower in ninth place overall.
The Welshman was also beaten by Sandro Cortese (GRT Yamaha), Leon Haslam (Kawasaki) and Markus Reiterberger (BMW), the trio occupying sixth, seventh and eighth respectively, while the top 10 was completed by Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Barni Ducati).
The three Hondas struggled immensely as they were the three slowest riders by a massive gap as team pace-setter Leon Camier was eight tenths slower than Jordi Torres, the lowest-ranked non-Honda rider.
Combined practice times
Cla | # | Rider | Bike | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 19 | Alvaro Bautista | Ducati | 1'49.607 | |
2 | 22 | Alex Lowes | Yamaha | 1'50.126 | 0.519 |
3 | 1 | Jonathan Rea | Kawasaki | 1'50.149 | 0.542 |
4 | 66 | Tom Sykes | BMW | 1'50.226 | 0.619 |
5 | 50 | Eugene Laverty | Ducati | 1'50.356 | 0.749 |
6 | 11 | Sandro Cortese | Yamaha | 1'50.636 | 1.029 |
7 | 91 | Leon Haslam | Kawasaki | 1'50.754 | 1.147 |
8 | 28 | Markus Reiterberger | BMW | 1'50.799 | 1.192 |
9 | 7 | Chaz Davies | Ducati | 1'50.920 | 1.313 |
10 | 21 | Michael Ruben Rinaldi | Ducati | 1'50.985 | 1.378 |
11 | 33 | Marco Melandri | Yamaha | 1'51.053 | 1.446 |
12 | 60 | Michael van der Mark | Yamaha | 1'51.103 | 1.496 |
13 | 54 | Toprak Razgatlioglu | Kawasaki | 1'51.232 | 1.625 |
14 | 36 | Leandro Mercado | Kawasaki | 1'51.560 | 1.953 |
15 | 81 | Jordi Torres | Kawasaki | 1'51.576 | 1.969 |
16 | 2 | Leon Camier | Honda | 1'52.364 | 2.757 |
17 | 23 | Ryuichi Kiyonari | Honda | 1'53.800 | 4.193 |
18 | 52 | Alessandro Delbianco | Honda | 1'53.883 | 4.276 |
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments