Davide Giugliano put himself on the top of the timesheets at Portimao World Superbikes second practice this afternoon, holding off the Kawasakis of Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes in the process.
Rea looked likely to add to his morning fastest lap with yet another in the second session, as a 1’43.381 had plenty of riders scrambling to outdo the Ulsterman but it took a long time in the session before Giugliano was able to displace him.
The Italian produced a stunning lap on the Algarve circuit to post a 1’43.323 and give himself and Ducati tons of confidence ahead of tomorrow’s remaining practices and the all-important Superpole.
Behind Giugliano and Rea were both men’s team-mates as Tom Sykes settled in third with a 1’43.596 and Chaz Davies was forced to be content with a still-impressive 1’43.776.
Indeed, from first practice, where Rea had been the only man in the 1’43 zone, there came six riders in second practice hitting 1’43s as Ayrton Badovini and Alex Lowes continued their good start to the weekend in fifth and sixth, respectively.
Rounding out the top ten was Sylvain Guintoli and Leon Haslam - who rode around some earlier morning problems as best he could - along with the latter’s team-mate Jordi Torres and Matteo Baiocco.
Guintoli’s fellow Pata Honda rider Michael Van Der Mark just missed out on the top ten by 0.118s in 11th, while Leon Camier - improving on his morning time with a 1’44.836 - could only find 14th place on the timesheets.
Despite Alex Lowes good performance on the Suzuki, Randy DePuniet failed to get anything decent from the same machinery in the second session and finished 19th, unable to make any impression on his morning’s best time of 1’46.629.
