World Superbike championship leader Jonathan Rea topped the opening practice session of the Portuguese round from Kawasaki team–mate Tom Sykes.
After a year’s absence from the WorldSBK calendar, the series returns to Portugal and to the Algarve circuit in Portimao.
KRT was one of only a few teams not to test at the Portuguese circuit earlier in the year, though this did not stop the British duo from hitting the ground running in the first hour–long session of the weekend.
Rea – who leads Sykes by 70 points in the standings ahead of this round – shot to the top of the timesheets in the opening minutes with a 1m44.284s, bettering that 25 minutes later with a 1m43.170s.
The Northern Irishman was unable to make any further gains, though no–one could put his position at the head of the pack in first practice under threat, and he ended the session 0.346 seconds clear of the field.
Sykes put a couple of tenths between himself in second and Leon Camier, who made an impressive start to proceedings on his MV Agusta, in third.
Ducati’s Chaz Davies – who topped the winter test at the circuit – slotted into fourth, a couple of hundredths outside of Camier‘s time, while Yamaha’s Alex Lowes made it an all British top five in first practice.
Eugene Laverty suffered some intermittent chatter problems early in the session, though still managed to go sixth fastest, albeit 1.1s off of the pace.
Michael van der Mark – who will be making his MotoGP debut next weekend in Aragon as Valentino Rossi’s replacement at Yamaha – was seventh on the second Pata R1, with Xavi Fores, Stefan Bradl and Lorenzo Savadori rounding out the top 10.
Althea BMW’s Jordi Torres had his session interrupted by a late technical issue with his S1000RR and was 11th. Leandro Mercado headed Roman Ramos in 12th, while Ayrton Badovini and Raffaele De Rosa completed the top 15.
Ant West makes his return to WorldSBK this weekend as Randy Krummenacher’s permanent replacement at Puccetti Kawasaki.
The Australian – who has contested much of this year’s Supersport championship before now – was 18th in first practice, 3.7s off the pace.
Marco Melandri was limited to just six minutes of track time thanks to an early issue with his Panigale. As a result, the Italian was left stranded in 19th on the timesheets.
WorldSBK debutant and Honda stand–in Takumi Takahashi completed the 21–rider field as he gets to grips with the WorldSBK version of the Honda Fireblade SP2.
