Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli immediately found a good feeling with his bike during both World Superbike practice outings and was able to top the timesheets not once, but twice at the Turkish circuit. The Frenchman pushed hard straight away as he felt confident the moment he left his garage.
In both sessions no one was able to come close to the rider and he was more than half a second faster than his nearest rival, Goldbet BMW’s Marco Melandri. But the England based lad has the advantage of being familiar with the Istanbul track, and wants to start off strongly in both races on Sunday.
But Guintoli has already identified tyre duration as the crucial point for the Istanbul weekend, but he knows that for this situation he can count on the performance of his RSV4.
“I'm usually one to start off slowly, but today I pushed hard right away because I felt very confident right out of the gate. At the Nurburgring I was close to the front runners but I was still lacking something. Here I want to be strong straight away,” said Guintoli.
“There will be two hot races on Sunday in more ways than one and it will be a delicate situation for the tyres. The battle for the championship is heated and it is no fluke that the top positions today are held by the main title contenders. We will need to work well in view of the races and grip is the main concern”.