Championship leader Jonathan Rea ended the opening day of track action for the Rimini World Superbike round fastest of all, the Kawasaki rider narrowly beating team-mate Tom Sykes to top spot in second practice.
Rea lost some of his morning session to a minor technical issue, but was still able to come into the second session just half a tenth down on fastest man Sykes.
The Northern Irishman had no such troubles in the afternoon and went top of the pile fairly early on with a 1m34.901s, before settling in to a race run on his ZX-10RR.
Despite the best efforts of Sykes, the Yorkshireman could not improve on his 1m34.931s from the first session and ends the day second. The three-times Misano race winner suffered a small crash at the final corner on his last lap, but walked away unscathed.
Marco Melandri did not improve on his best lap from this morning in the second session, but remained third on the combined times ahead of team-mate Chaz Davies.
MV Agusta’s Leon Camier did go faster this afternoon, the Briton popping in a 1m35.267s towards the end of the session to close in on the Ducati duo in fifth spot. Althea BMW’s Jordi Torres was sixth quickest, some three tenths of a second adrift of Camier.
Xavi Fores’ session came to an early end when his Barni Ducati expired half an hour into the session. Forced into the role of onlooker, Fores remained inside the top 10 in seventh.
Yamaha’s Michael van der Mark crashed at Turn 8 in the opening minutes of the session, but suffered no ill effects from it and was able to clock a 1m35.718s to remain eighth on the combined times.
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️ And third crash of the day for @alexlowes22
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Team-mate Alex Lowes fell off twice in the first session, and completed the hat-trick this afternoon just moments before van der Mark. The Briton was able to rejoin the session and secured the final spot in Superpole two, Milwaukee Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty just ahead of him in ninth.
Lorenzo Savadori was staring at direct passage into SP2 as the chequered flag flew, but was pipped by Lowes in the dying seconds by just a few hundredths.
