Jonathan Rea brushed off an early fall at the Aspar corner to end Friday in World Superbikes at Jerez fastest of all from team-mate Tom Sykes.
Newly-crowned triple world champion Rea dominated proceedings in this morning’s opening session, posting a 1m40.291s to six tenths clear of the rest.
Conditions remained dry and bright for the second hour-long outing at the Spanish track, though improvements on first practice times were few and far between, with Xavi Fores the only rider inside the top 20 to better his laptime in 11th on the combined standings.
WorldSBK returnee Sylvain Guintoli, MV Agusta’s Leon Camier and wildcard Dominc Schmitter – who missed most of the first session with technical troubles – soon improved, the former jumping up to 11th while Camier went 13th.
The first big mover came in the form of Michael van der Mark, who guided his Pata Yamaha R1 to a 1m40.890s to go second overall – albeit 0.599 seconds shy of Rea‘s best effort from this morning.
A crash in the opening stages at Turn 8 left Rea‘s ZX-10RR in a bad way, but his team were able to fix the damage and get the Northern Irishman back out on track.
The Kawasaki rider had posted a 1m40.435s to lead the session, though this was some two tenths down on his morning best and he was unable to better that despite his best efforts.
Team-mate Sykes put in a late charge to jump up to second on the combined times with a 1m40.888s, edging van der Mark by just 0.002s.
Ducati’s Marco Melandri ended the afternoon fourth and fifth overall, though was struck by a technical issue at the end of the session. Team-mate Chaz Davies crashed at the Lorenzo corner not long after Rea‘s spill, and did not make it back out. His first practice time of 1m41.204s kept him 10th.
Milwaukee Aprilia’s Lorenzo Savadori ended the day seventh overall despite a fall in the afternoon, while team-mate Eugene Laverty made sure both of Shaun Muir’s RSV4s got into SP2.
Alex Lowes in fourth, Roman Ramos in eighth and Guintoli in ninth were the other three riders to secure direct passage into the second Superpole session, while MV Agusta’s Leon Camier just missed out in 11th.
