Aruba Ducati’s Alvaro Bautista marmalised the WorldSBK field in the opening practice at Motorland Aragon, finishing with a 1.127s advantage over Alex Lowes in second with reigning champion Jonathan Rea, suffering with front-end chatter, in third.
Times had been close until the final five minutes with the top four covered by a matter of tenths, but Bautista had other ideas.
The former MotoGP rider, who was leading with a 1’50.841, dropped his time to a 1’50.152 before messing up his next lap at turn 12 while holding 0.336s advantage at the end of sector two.
The little Spaniard then upped his game again to go under team-mate Chaz Davies’ lap record by eight-tenths and get within three-tenths of last year’s pole time on a race tyre.
Bautista and Davies both tested here last week and may have a small advantage over the pack. Bautista is fastest in all sectors apart from sector three, where Davies leads while Rea only features in the top three in sector two.
As expected, Bautista is fastest through the back straight speed trap at 194.5mph and has a two mile per hour advantage over Leon Haslam but curiously, Rea is down in ninth at 189.4mph so there is some work to do there for the champion’s crew chief Pere Riba as it is currently losing him six-tenths to Bautista.
Lowes, meanwhile, is right on the pace in sectors one and two but loses out in the third sector. His time of 1’50.819 was enough to keep Rea behind him by 0.022s with Davies only a 0.079s further back on the second V4R.
Haslam sits in fifth place with a 1’50.985 and trails Davies by 0.065s while Eugene Laverty will be happy with sixth place on the Goeleven Panigale as he is less than a tenth down on the KRT ZX-10RR of Haslam.
Tom Sykes managed to tease 187.5mph out of his near-stock BMW engine to set a 1’51.215 in seventh with Michael van der Mark next along on the second Pata Yamaha. He is half a second off team-mate Lowes.
Sandro Cortese and Jordi Torres complete the top ten while Marco Melandri, whose lack of bulk sees him fourth through the speed trap is in 14th place and 2.737s off the pace.
Leon Camier’s nightmare continues as the injured Moriwaki Honda man finished 3.813s in arrears and 15th on the speed gun at 186.4mph, the business end of 10mph slower than Bautista.
Top speeds
1 19 A. BAUTISTA Ducati Panigale V4 R 311,2
2 91 L. HASLAM Kawasaki ZX-10RR 308,6
3 7 C. DAVIES Ducati Panigale V4 R 307,7
4 33 M. MELANDRI Yamaha YZF R1 307,7
5 22 A. LOWES Yamaha YZF R1 306,8
6 21 M. RINALDI Ducati Panigale V4 R 305,9
7 60 M. VAN DER MARK Yamaha YZF R1 305,1
8 50 E. LAVERTY Ducati Panigale V4 R 303,4
9 1 J. REA Kawasaki ZX-10RR 303,4
10 11 S. CORTESE Yamaha YZF R1 303,4
11 66 T. SYKES BMW S1000 RR 300,8
12 23 R. KIYONARI Honda CBR1000RR 300,0
13 81 J. TORRES Kawasaki ZX-10RR 299,2
14 54 T. RAZGATLIOGLU Kawasaki ZX-10RR 298,3
15 2 L. CAMIER Honda CBR1000RR 298,3
16 28 M. REITERBERGER BMW S1000 RR 296,7
17 36 L. MERCADO Kawasaki ZX-10RR 292,7
18 52 A. DELBIANCO Honda CBR1000RR 288,0
