Qatar WSBK: Davies sets pace in Thursday practice

Davies had hit the deck at Turn 4 in the early minutes of first practice, and was only eighth-quickest at the chequered flag, nine tenths down on pace-setter Jonathan Rea.

However, he wound up setting the fastest time of the day in the closing minutes of the second session, his 1m57.449s leaving him just over a quarter of a second clear of Rea.

Davies' teammate Alvaro Bautista, who was first to surpass champion Rea's FP1 benchmark in FP2, wound up 0.318s down on Davies in third place.

The series' leading independent rider Toprak Razgatlioglu made it a Kawasaki 1-2 with Rea in FP1, and was fourth at the end of the day, heading Yamaha's Michael van der Mark and BMW's Tom Sykes.

Their respective works squadmates Alex Lowes and Markus Reiterberger followed in seventh and eighth, while GRT Yamaha's Sandro Cortese and Ten Kate Yamaha's Loris Baz made up the combined classification top 10.

Baz was the only rider who did not improve upon his daytime FP1 effort in FP2 under the lights.

Leon Haslam, in his farewell outing as a Kawasaki works rider, ended the day in 12th, over a second down on teammate Rea, while the retiring Marco Melandri (GRT Yamaha) was 14th.

iXS Yamaha wildcard Dominic Schmitter, making his second appearance of the season after Misano, propped up the order.

FP1 results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	1	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki	01'58.010
2	54	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Kawasaki	01'58.140	00.130
3	60	Michael van der Mark	Yamaha	01'58.402	00.392
4	22	Alex Lowes	Yamaha	01'58.493	00.483
5	11	Sandro Cortese	Yamaha	01'58.516	00.506
6	76	Loris Baz	Yamaha	01'58.566	00.556
7	19	Alvaro Bautista	Ducati	01'58.817	00.807
8	7	Chaz Davies	Ducati	01'58.892	00.882
9	33	Marco Melandri	Yamaha	01'59.279	01.269
10	66	Tom Sykes	BMW	01'59.448	01.438
11	28	Markus Reiterberger	BMW	01'59.556	01.546
12	36	Leandro Mercado	Kawasaki	01'59.751	01.741
13	91	Leon Haslam	Kawasaki	01'59.775	01.765
14	50	Eugene Laverty	Ducati	01'59.826	01.816
15	21	Michael Ruben Rinaldi	Ducati	01'59.936	01.926
16	2	Leon Camier	Honda	01'59.965	01.955
17	81	Jordi Torres	Kawasaki	01'59.982	01.972
18	52	Alessandro Del Bianco	Honda	02'00.456	02.446
19	23	Ryuichi Kiyonari	Honda	02'01.032	03.022
20	9	Dominic Schmitter	Yamaha	02'04.067	06.057
View full results

FP2 results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	7	Chaz Davies	Ducati	01'57.449
2	1	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki	01'57.722	00.273
3	19	Alvaro Bautista	Ducati	01'57.767	00.318
4	54	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Kawasaki	01'58.028	00.579
5	60	Michael van der Mark	Yamaha	01'58.157	00.708
6	66	Tom Sykes	BMW	01'58.255	00.806
7	22	Alex Lowes	Yamaha	01'58.303	00.854
8	28	Markus Reiterberger	BMW	01'58.459	01.010
9	11	Sandro Cortese	Yamaha	01'58.503	01.054
10	50	Eugene Laverty	Ducati	01'58.692	01.243
11	91	Leon Haslam	Kawasaki	01'58.769	01.320
12	76	Loris Baz	Yamaha	01'58.823	01.374
13	21	Michael Ruben Rinaldi	Ducati	01'58.925	01.476
14	33	Marco Melandri	Yamaha	01'58.982	01.533
15	36	Leandro Mercado	Kawasaki	01'59.032	01.583
16	81	Jordi Torres	Kawasaki	01'59.087	01.638
17	2	Leon Camier	Honda	01'59.119	01.670
18	52	Alessandro Del Bianco	Honda	02'00.165	02.716
19	23	Ryuichi Kiyonari	Honda	02'00.459	03.010
20	9	Dominic Schmitter	Yamaha	02'02.075	04.626
View full results