New champion Rea dominates Jerez FP1
Newly-crowned World Superbike champion Jonathan Rea obliterated the field in a frantic first practice session for the Jerez round.
Conditions were dry but cool for the first session on the newly-resurfaced Jerez circuit, and it was triple WorldSBK champion Jonathan Rea who set the early benchmark.
The Kawasaki rider shot to the top of the pile with a 1m41.520s in the opening six minutes of the session, with Yamaha’s Alex Lowes cutting his advantage down to just over a tenth in second spot.
Rather unexpectedly, Spaniard Roman Ramos – who recently re-signed with the Go Eleven Kawasaki team for 2018 – took over from Rea at the top of the timesheets with a 1m41.459s with 20 minutes left on the clock.
With just under 10 minutes left, a flurry of fast laps saw Ramos’ Kawasaki stablemate Tom Sykes go a tenth quicker with a 1m41.337s, though was soon deposed by Althea BMW’s Jordi Torres with a 1m41.330s.
The Spaniard’s time at the head of the field was short-lived, as Yamaha’s Michael van der Mark raised the benchmark with a 1m41.102s, before Marco Melandri – who sat out much of the session with an technical issue – dipped into the 1m40s with a 1m40.893s.
However, with three minutes on the clock, Rea stamped his authority with a 1m40.598s and further improved to a 1m40.291s to go six tenths clear of the field.
Lowes returned to second at the end with a 1m40.891s, while Melandri rounded out the top three ahead of Eugene Laverty and van der Mark.
Ramos may have slipped almost a second adrift of session leader Rea at the chequered flag, but proved his earlier pace was no fluke as he climbed back up the order to sixth ahead of last year’s double Jerez winner Chaz Davies.
Sykes found himself shuffled back to ninth when the dust settled, while Lorenzo Savadori took the last provisional SP2 spot in 10th.
Barni Racing’s Xavi Fores will have work to do this afternoon to close down the four-tenth gap he has to the top 10 in 11th. Raffaele De Rosa ended the morning 12th after a late crash at Turn 1.
Sylvain Guintoli – who replaces Ant West at the Puccetti team for the remainder of the season – was 13th on his first session back in WorldSBK, the 2014 world champion just 1.7s off the pace ahead of Leandro Mercado and Riccardo Russo.
Ayrton Badovini was the only other faller in the session, the Italian coming off of his Grillini Kawasaki at Turn 1. Wildcard Dominic Schmitter only completed five laps on his IDM-spec Suzuki GSX-R1000 due to an early technical issue.