VisionTrack Ducati’s Josh Brookes drew first blood in the opening Bennetts British Superbike free practice this afternoon which was brought forward due to the menacing weather forecast at Donington tomorrow.
Brookes’ final run of laps saw him find three-tenths of a second on the Panigle V4 to jump from third to first on the timesheet and he was the only rider to get under the 1’30s barrier with a 1’29.768.
Points leader Glenn Irwin, who had led on the works Honda almost from session start, settled with his early fast lap of 1’30.009 while team-mate and brother Andrew finished in third and only 0.035s down.
Brookes’ team-mate Christian Iddon put on a late spurt to bag fourth place and former MotoGP rider Hetcor Barbera was another late charger, hauling his Rich Energy BMW from outside the top 15 to fifth, ending just under half a second off the pace.
Tommy Bridewell claimed sixth place on the Oxford Racing Ducati after spending his first session on KTech suspension. His team have switched away from Ohlins for the final two round presumably to try and do something about chatter from the Pirelli tyres.
He was followed by Lee Jackson who has again outshone FS-3 team-leader Danny Buchan if only by one place and 0.053 seconds.
Jason O’Halloran, second in the championship table, took his McAMS Yamaha R1 to ninth with Buildbase Suzuki’s Kyle Ryde completing the top ten with a lap less than a second off the pace.
Luke Mossey, Ryan Vickers, Gino Rea, Keith Farmer and Peter Hickman round out the top 15 with former WorldSBK sar Markus Reiterberger in 17th, just ahead of Jack Kennedy and Tarran Mackenzie.
Due to the predicted appalling weather tomorrow, the second free practice will take place this afternoon at 3.50pm.
