Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea has drawn first blood on day one of World Superbike testing at Jerez, setting the quickest time of the day but he was chased hard by Alex Lowes who put in a late, fast lap to get to a hundredth of a second behind the Isle of Man resident.
Rea and Lowes were two of the most active on track today with 87 and 84 laps completed respectively courtesy of dry conditions throughout the whole day and temperatures reaching a peak of 17°C, almost all riders were able to make up for time lost in the previous tests by putting in a significant number of laps.
The two unlucky exceptions were Sylvain Guintoli, who crashed out on his third flying lap and Leon Haslam who was forced to sit out almost the entire day due to technical issues with his Red Devils RSV4 machine.
Despite an innocuous crash halfway through the session, Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) proved to be in great form by ending up third fastest ahead of the factory Ducati duo of Davide Giugliano and Chaz Davies, all very close to the top of the timesheet.
Sylvain Barrier (BMW Motorrad Italia) was only seven tenths slower than Rea as he was followed by the three class rookies: Randy de Puniet (Crescent Suzuki), Michael van der Mark (Pata Honda World Superbike) and Jordi Torres (Red Devils Aprilia), ninth and less than a second away from today’s quickest lap-time. The Spaniard completed an impressive total of 94 laps in the session.
Jerez World Superbike test day one - conditions dry
1 Jonathan Rea Kawasaki 1’41.327
2 Alex Lowes Crescent Suzuki +0.012
3 Tom Sykes Kawasaki +0.073
4 Davide Giugliano Aruba Ducati +0.189
5 Chaz Davies Aruba Ducati +0.215
6 Sylvain Barrier BMW Italia +0.760
7 Randy De Puniet Crescent +0.863
8 Michael van der Mark Pata Honda +0.924
9 Jordi Torres Red Devils Aprilia +0.935
10 Matteo Baiocco Althea Ducati +1.253
11 Nico Terol Althea Ducati +1.372
12 Tati Mercado Barni Ducati +1.440
13 David Salom Pedercini Kawasaki +1.571
14 Leon Haslam Red Devils Aprilia +1.849
15 Nico Canepa Hero EBR +2.681
16 Larry Pegram Hero EBR +4.793
17 Sylvain Guintoli Pata Honda +8.056
