On a day that saw three 45-minute Free Practice sessions for the WorldSBK riders, the final one deciding the 20 riders qualified to tomorrow’s Tissot-Superpole sessions was the most intense as well. Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) ended day one as the fastest rider to lap the 4.023km Donington Park circuit as the top-13 was covered by only 0.953s.
The official Kawasaki rider’s time of 1.28.172 was less than a tenth of a second from his own race lap record set in 2013 and kept the former champion 0.111s ahead of the opposition.
Davide Giugliano crashed his Aruba.it Racing Ducati SBK Team entry moments after moving into second place with three minutes to go, the Italian was able to stay ahead of Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) who finished third after also improving in the final session of the day.
Leon Haslam (Aprilia Racing Team – Red Devils) showed no ill effects of the rib injury from Imola, moving closer to the fastest time in fourth ahead of compatriots Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati SBK Team) and Alex Lowes (Voltcom Crescent Suzuki) who were fifth and sixth, respectively.
Ayrton Badovini kept BMW Motorrad Italia in contention in seventh ahead of Michael van der Mark (Pata Honda World Superbike Team), Leon Camier (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) and Matteo Baiocco (Althea Racing Ducati).
WorldSBK rookie Jordi Torres (Aprilia Racing Team – Red Devils) just missed out on the top ten on his Donington debut day, ahead of Sylvain Guintoli (Pata Honda World Superbike Team), David Salom (Team Pedercini), Randy de Puniet (Voltcom Crescent Suzuki) and the youngest rider on the grid Christophe Ponsson (Team Pedercini Kawasaki) who rounded out the top-15.
The final rider to make it into Tissot-Superpole was Santiago Barragan (Grillini SBK Team Kawasaki) who edged Imre Toth (BMW Team Toth) in the final half of FP3 to secure 20th despite an early crash at ‘Goddards’.
WorldSBK Donington – Combined times Free Practice 1, 2 and 3
1 – Tom Sykes Kawasaki Racing Team 1’28.172
2 – Davide Giugliano Aruba.it Racing – Ducati Superbike Team +0.111
3 – Jonathan Rea Kawasaki Racing Team +0.311
For full results, click here
