Ducati’s Davide Giugliano was the quickest rider in this morning’s World Superbike opening free practice session at Imola after a 1’48.329. Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea left it till the chequered flag appeared to go second, but was two tenths too slow to top the timesheets.
Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli, Ducati’s Chaz Davies and Aprilia’s Marco Melandri completed the top five. Initially it was Rea who set the pace, quickly followed by Giugliano.
Sykes was one of the last riders to make it out of the pits, but he soon made up for a slow start and after two laps went second fastest with a 1’49.727, only for Guintoli to out do both Huddersfield’s finest and the Ducati of Giugliano to top the timesheets with a 1’49.362 lap slap bang on the 33 minute mark.
Melandri was not going to sit back and let his French team-mate attempt to take all the spoils but couldn’t manage to pip Guintoli to a provisional pole, after fifteen minutes of track time and went three tenths slower than the England based Frenchman. But the Italian did push Sykes down to third.
Five minutes later the reigning World Superbike machine of Sykes regained his second place on the timesheets edging Melandri by one tenth of a second. Slightly further down the pack BMW Italia’s stand-in rider Leon Camier was the leading Evo bike out on track.
The Brit was just inside the top ten for the majority of the session, and was lapping faster times than most of the other non-evo bikes with twenty minutes remaining. In the end Kawasaki’s David Salom was the quickest Evo bike in ninth with the tall Kent lad finishing the morning thirteenth overall with a 1’50.457.
Rea did slip back in the standings but soon made his way up the timing screens in a steady pace and was hot on the heels of the times set by Sykes and before he retreated back to the pits with less than twenty minutes left was only one two-thousandths of a second slower than his fellow compatriot - to place him third for the time being.
With only seven minutes left Rea finally out-paced Sykes to go into second with a 1’49.005, but still couldn’t do enough to get the better of Guintoli – who kept improving on his lap time and was the first rider to lap inside the 1’48 bracket.
Then with a mere three minutes of track time remaining, from out of nowhere Davies leapt from seventh to second on the timing screens, going one tenth slower than the 1’48.799 lap clocked by Guintoli. But Giugliano blitzed his Welsh team-mate back down to third as he clocked a 1’48.329 to top the timesheets at his home track.
Rea was not giving up on the fight for a provisional pole spot and a fast last lap dash paid off as he climbed from fifth to second with a solid 1’48.580 with Guintoli completing the top three.
When the chequered flag came out Sykes missed our on a top five finish on the timesheets and fell back to sixth after he couldn’t better his 1’49.089, followed by Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam - who was only one tenth slower than the champion and ended the morning in a respectable seventh.
It was not a great morning for the Voltcom Suzuki team. Alex Lowes was never really inside the top ten times throughout the 45 minutes of lappery – until the final minute when he made it to tenth after his best lap of 1’50.307.
Lowes’ team-mate Eugene Laverty left it quite late to leave the pits and only did ten laps. The Irishman ended the morning eighteenth with a 1’51.541. Alstare’s Christian Iddon onboard his Bimoto BB3 Evo machine ended the session 22nd with a 1’52.359.
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