MAHI Racing’s Kenan Sofuoglu made up for not making it out on to the track in the earlier wet World Supersport free practice, as he clocked the fastest time of 1’33.618 this afternoon. The rain stopped and the track started to dry up, meaning more riders ventured outside their garages.
DMC Panavto-Yamaha’s Kev Coghlan bagged himself a provisional front row spot. Perthshire’s finest was challenging Sofuoglu and Pata Honda’s Michael Van Der Mark for the majority of the session, and proved that he could keep up with their pace. The Scot was unfortunately unable to capitalize on the fact that Sofuoglu had a technical problem at Doohan with 90 seconds remaining, and was unable to lap in the 1’33’s. But he was not far behind with his best lap of 1’34.263, and is adapting well to his YZF R6.
Pata Honda’s Michael Van Der Mark did lead the charge in the early part of the lappery, but crashed at Lukey Heights. He was unhurt and managed to rejoin the session, to end the day fourth quickest with a 1’34.277.
Former MCE British Superbike rider, PJ Jacobsen had a solid start to his debut World Supersport season. The diminutive American also made it to third fastest on the timesheets, in the first half of the second session. But Jacobsen crashed on turn 11 with less than four minutes left of track time remaining, meaning the New Yorker finished sixth on the timesheets, after his best lap of 1’34.366. But fortunately he was unhurt.
Yakhnich’s Jules Cluzel could not match the times set by the leading three, but did manage a time, to place him fifth quickest with his Russian colleague Vladimir Leonov completing the ten fastest times. Core PTR Honda's Raffaele De Rosa ended the day in third.
Smiths Triumph’s duo of Billy McConnell and Graeme Gowland could not top the timesheets, like they did in the wet in the opening session, but the Motorpoint British Supersport regulars had to settle for times outside the top ten with Gowland going one tenth of a second faster than his Aussie team-mate, setting a 1’35.195. They end the afternoon sixteenth and seventeenth respectively. Com Plus Racing’s Fraser Rogers completed the final free practice session of the day in twenty-fourth with a 1’37.378.
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