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Aragon WSBK: Rea heads first free practice

Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea left it till the dying minutes of the first World Superbike free practice session at Aragon to head the rest of the pack with a 1’58.449 this morning, holding off Aprilia’s Marco Melandri by two tenths of a second and also preventing Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes from snatching the spoils.

It was Ducati’s Chaz Davies who set the early pace, and showed that he was obviously comfortable out on a circuit he had done the double at before, with a 1’59.437. But his rather smaller former BMW team-mate, Marco Melandri onboard his Aprilia was never too far off the pace of the Welshman – two tenths of a second to be exact with more than 30 minutes of track time left.

But ten minutes later, reigning champ Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes went three tenths of a second quicker than the Panigale of Davies with a 1’59.083. Melandri was never too far away and with 15 minutes remaining went one one-thousandths of a second faster than Davies to go second. But that did not last long as Davies hit back with a 1’59.135. But in the end the Powys based resident finished seventh fastest, followed by Giugliano.

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Rea had a solid session, and continued to up his race pace throughout the 45 minutes. With just over five minutes to go he went two tenths of a second quicker than Ducati’s Davide Giugliano to jump into fourth fastest after a 1’59.457.

Elsewhere the top of the timing screens continued to change and it was Sykes’ French team-mate, Loris Baz, who came out of nowhere to go top with a 1’58.788 but that was only to last two seconds as Melandri went even faster again one two-hundredths of a second to be exact. Not to be out done Rea put in an impressive lap on his fourteenth rotation of the circuit to shoot him from fourth to first.

When the chequered flag appeared the top three were made up of Rea, Melandri and Sykes – with Huddersfield’s finest ending the morning with a 1’58.771. Baz and Guintoli rounded of the top five. Voltcom Suzuki pair of Eugene Laverty and Alex Lowes were matching each others pace throughout the morning, but it was the more experienced rider of Laverty which went just six tenths of a second faster than the Derby based lad, with both riders ending the morning with a 2’00.039 and 2’00.604 respectively, in eighth and ninth on the timesheets.

Althea Racing’s Niccolo Canepa was the quickest EVO spec bike out on the Spanish circuit and rounded off the top ten. Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam was nearly two seconds off the pace of his Northern Irish team-mate and missed out on a top ten spot by two tenths of a second.

A familiar face returned to the circuit, in the shape of last years Suzuki competitor Leon Camier. The tall Kent lad was riding in place of BMW Motorrad’s Sylvain Barrier, who is recovering from a road accident. The Brit appeared to have adapted well to the BMW – as he ended the morning in a respectable sixteenth.

Making his debut in the World Superbike class for his new team was Alstare’s Christian Iddon competing on his Bimota BB3 machine in the Evo class. The Stockport rider ended his first outing 23rd on the timesheets with a 2’04.548.

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