Reigning WorldSBK Champion Jonathan Rea snuck to the top of the Misano combined practice timesheets this afternoon but only by 0.030s after completely changing the front end of his factory Kawasaki after 15 minutes.
Rea put in a 1’34.901 on only his second lap of the session and that was enough to take the laurels as the rest of the top five didn’t change position from this morning and only MV Agusta’s Leon Camier able to go faster in the hotter temperatures, improving to a 1’35.267 to finish less than four-tenths behind Rea.
The Castletown resident didn’t do his traditional FP2 race simulation but managed 13 laps in the 1’35s in four runs on top of his 1’34. Team-mate Tom Sykes, who crashed at the last corner when he lost the front on his final flying lap, has the same kind of pace as do Marco Melandri and Chaz Davies, so it doesn’t look like so much of a runaway for Rea this stage.
Camier managed as many laps in the 1’35s and is only struggling for pace in the second sector. He is quickest in the first by a tenth of a second and isn’t outside the top four in the rest.
Althea BMW’s Jordi Torres was able to improve on his time from this morning and hopped into sixth place with three minutes left to run which suffled Barni Ducati’s Xavi Fores back to seventh. Michael Van Der Mark bounced back from a crash to finished in eighth with Eugene Laverty in ninth place.
Laverty’s Milwaukee Aprilia team-mate got a tow from Rea to nab the final automatic qualifying two slot with one minute left but Alex Lowes had other ideas. He got off the floor from his third crash of the day to steal tenth place with his last lap, beating Savadori by 0.016s.
