---
title: "Rea leads the way in Donington FP1 despite early tumble"
canonical: "https://readmotorsport.com/2017/05/26/rea-leads-way-donington-fp1-despite-early-tumble/"
type: "post"
language: "en-GB"
author: "Lewis Duncan"
section: "SBK"
published: "2017-05-26T10:02:58Z"
modified: "2017-05-26T10:03:18Z"
---

# Rea leads the way in Donington FP1 despite early tumble

Championship leader Jonathan Rea topped the opening practice session for the sixth round of the 2017 World Superbike season at Donington Park, despite suffering an early fall.

Rea comes into this weekend”s action with a comfortable 74-point advantage in the championship standings following two second-place finishes at Imola. Confident he could be a contender at a track which has typically favoured team-mate Tom Sykes, at this early stages at least, Rea delivered on his promise.

![Mirco Lazzari gp/Getty Images Sport](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2017/05/682653458.jpg)

Having recovered from a small off at the Melbourne Hairpin in the opening minutes, Rea shot to the top of the pile in the closing stages with a 1m27.828s, which put him just over two tenths of a second outside of the race lap record.

Sykes led for much of FP1, at one stage by almost eight tenths as he seeks to reignite his championship charge at a track he has won at for the last eight races. A 1m27.939s saw him into second on the timesheets at the chequered flag.

Ducati’s Marco Melandri upped his pace in the final quarter of the session to go third quickest, with team-mate Chaz Davies slotting into fourth ahead of Yamaha’s Michael van der Mark, who suffered a bruising session on his YZF-R1.

> Twitter: He couldn’t hold onto that one! Big highside for @mickeyvdmark! He’s up and OK.\
> \#UKWorldSBK https://t.co/OocSWfmPTc (@WorldSBK)

The Dutch rider slid off at Melbourne 15 minutes in, but was able to remount and re-join. Unfortunately, whilst pushing in the final minutes, he crashed exiting the Fogarty chicane, though thankfully came away from it unscathed.

Wildcard Leon Haslam was sixth fastest on the Puccetti Kawasaki, as the British Superbike standings leader makes the first of several appearances in the world championship in 2017.

![Ker Robertson/Getty Images Sport](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2017/05/614822348.jpg)

A double winner at Donington in BSB this season, Haslam was just seven tenths off the pace in FP1, with Milwaukee Aprilia’s Lorenzo Savadori a few hundredths further back in seventh. Leon Camier, Alex Lowes and Eugene Laverty completed the top 10.

Also making a wildcard appearance from the British championship this weekend is Jake Dixon. The RAF Reserves rider, who currently sits 15th in the BSB standings, was a respectable 20th on his Kawasaki and just 2.1s off the pace.

![](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2017/05/2017-05-26-1.png)