Max Biaggi continued his incredible return to World Superbikes, topping the second practice session at Misano on his Aprilia, beating Tom Sykes’ official lap record in the process.
Biaggi made certain that his morning performance during first practice at was no fluke as he swooped late in the session, bringing his RSV4 around the 2.626mile circuit with a time of 1’35.380, just as the Ducatis of Davide Giugliano and Chaz Davies had looked to have made it a Ducati one-two.
A crash during the morning session ruled Giugliano out of any further first practice action, so it was no surprise to see him making up for lost time and his 1’35.631 looked to be good enough for the fastest lap of the session, before Biaggi’s superb lap put that thought to rest.
Indeed, Giugliano had only scraped past his team-mate Davies to secure top spot at the time by 0.006s but in the end both men had to settle for second and third behind the returning Aprilia man.
In fourth was Leon Haslam, who had a good session and got a lot closer to his wildcard team-mate Biaggi, which will mean a lot ahead of tomorrow’s all-important sessions.
Championship leader Jonathan Rea could only finish fifth but with a 1’35.672, just 0.292s off the leader, he’ll be quietly confident that he can place himself in a good position tomorrow before Sunday’s races.
Rea finished just ahead of his Kawasaki team-mate Tom Sykes, who has won the last three Superpoles at Misano, as the Yorkshireman took sixth ahead of Jordi Torres and an impressive showing from Leandro Mercado.
Finalising the top ten were Alex Lowes, who delivered another consistent session aboard the Crescent Suzuki, and Matteo Baiocco.
Sylvain Guintoli, the defending World Superbikes champion, finished a narrow 11th on the timesheets as his 1’36.116 saw him end up just 0.020s off Baiocco’s lap. Guintoli’s team-mate Michael Van Der Mark endured a disappointing second session, to add to his similar morning, as he finished 17th just ahead of the second Crescent Suzuki of Randy DePuniet.
Elsewhere, wildcard Markus Reiterberger finished in 12th just behind Guintoli while Britain’s Leon Camier was able to place his MV Agusta 15th with a 1’36.657.
