Danny Buchan maintained the top spot in the second Bennetts British Superbike Championship free practice session at Knockhill, with the Synetiq BMW rider setting the quickest time of the day thus far at the Scottish venue.
A late lap of 47.376s bettered his own time from earlier in the day and pushed Jason O’Halloran back to second overall after the McAMS Yamaha man looked set to claim the top honours. Superb laps by Rory Skinner (FS-3 Racing Kawasaki) and Danny Kent (Buildbase Suzuki) put them third and fourth quickest respectively.
However, the big news was that reigning Champion Josh Brookes (VisionTrack Ducati) failed to make it into the top 12 ‘Superpicks’ and although he improved upon his morning time, 13th overall means he’ll have to go into Q1 later this afternoon.
With conditions again dry, O’Halloran soon bettered Buchan’s morning time, albeit by just 0.009s, with a lap of 47.723s whilst the BMW’s of Kyle Ryde and Andrew Irwin were also early movers as they moved up inside the top ten.
The second McAMS Yamaha of Tarran Mackenzie was also lapping quicker than his FP1 time and moved up to fifth overall but one man who was out was Josh Owens, the CDH Racing Kawasaki rider crashing out early on.
Down in 16th at one stage, Brookes lapped at 47.868s mid-way through the session to get to within 0.445s of O’Halloran’s pace setting time, jumping into seventh quickest overall in the process which looked like it had put him safe.
It didn’t look like anyone would better O’Halloran’s time but Buchan had other ideas and with two minutes to go his lap of 47.376s reasserted his authority and he moved back into first.
O’Halloran held onto second but there was plenty of movement behind him as Kent initially jumped into third before being overhauled by Superbike rookie Skinner in the closing stages after his lap of 47.595s
Christian Iddon, second in the morning, failed to go any quicker on his VisionTrack Ducati and slipped back to fifth overall ahead of Mackenzie, Bradley Ray (Rich Energy OMG Racing BMW), Peter Hickman (FHO Racing BMW), Glenn Irwin (Honda Racing) and Lee Jackson (FS-3 Racing Kawasaki).
The latter moved up into the top 12 during the session as did 11th placed Tommy Bridewell (Oxford Products Ducati) and it was Ryan Vickers who completed the top 12 ‘Superpicks’ on his RAF Regular & Reserve Kawasaki.
The late changes meant that Brookes was pushed back from seventh to 13th though and he'll have to go to Q1 as will Andrew Irwin and Ryde, neither of the two able to maintain their early pace.
