Reigning WorldSBK Champion Jonathan Rea bounced back from his first crash of the year to lead the opening practice session at Donington Park - heading the usual suspects with wildcard Leon Haslam in sixth place.
Rea went down at Melbourne Loop within ten minutes of the session starting, running on to the grass at the hairpin and ending up upside down in the grass but rode back to the pits. After a brief to stop to get everything straight, he returned to the track and set a 1’27.828 to lead team-mate Tom Sykes by a tenth of a second with only half the number of laps on the board.
Marco Melandri ended as top Ducati, two-tenths slower than Sykes on a 1’28.153 with Aruba team-mate Chaz Davies in fourth on a 1’28.360. Michael Van Der Mark managed to crash twice in the session - once at Melbourne and another at Foggy’s when he was spat over the highside - but still ended in fifth place and six-tenths off the pace.
Haslam is back in WorldSBK for the first time since his Qatar appearance last year. The MCE British Superbike leader as as high as second but was edged back to sixth but still only three-quarters of a second slower than Rea. Lorenzo Savadori stuck his Milwaukee Aprilia in seventh, one in front of Leon Camier on the MV.
Alex Lowes ended in ninth with Eugene Laverty - who has some ‘new materials’ to test this weekend - completing the top ten.
Jordi Torres put his Althea BMW in 11th place but 1.342s in arrears with Tati Mercado, Xavi Fores, Roman Ramos and Stefan Bradl completing the top ten. Jake Dixon put in 21 laps on his BSB-spec RAF Reserves Kawasaki with a best of 1’30.007.
