Althea Racing’s Davide Giugliano once again out-paced the rest of the grid in the second World Superbike practice qualifying session at Jerez this morning, with a 1’41.371 lap.
But the Italian did not appear to be in contention for a provisional front row, that honour went to Red Devils Toni Elias and Aprilia's Eugene Laverty. The Irish lad was leading the charge with ten minutes remaining, with his best lap of 1’41.633. But six minutes later Giugliano went top with former MotoGP rider Elias ending the morning second fastest with his 1’41.633 lap.
But Laverty did manage to go faster than championship rival and team-mate Sylvain Guintoli who clocked the fourth quickest time, one-tenth of a second behind leader, Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes.
The Huddersfield rider did top the timesheets in the early half of the session, but soon slipped back down to fifth as the Aprilia’s went nearly one second faster. But there was a battle of the GoldBet BMW machines, and in this outing it was Marco Melandri who went three-tenths of a second quicker than his much taller team-mate, Chaz Davies. The Welshman set a 1’42.300.
Fixi Crescent Suzuki returnee Leon Camier ended the morning inside the top ten, in ninth with a solid 1’42.467. The rider is still recovering from a broken foot and is still not fully fit. Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam ended the session seventeenth fastest with a 1’42.973.
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