Jonathan Rea secured the quickest time of first practice at World Superbikes Portimao this morning, holding off the resurgent Davide Giugliano by 0.704s to get his weekend off to a fine start.
Giugliano and the Ducatis had enjoyed the best of the session as the Italian sat atop the leaderboard for much of it, but late in proceedings Rea was able to take his ZX-10R around the challenging circuit and post a 1’43.514, leaving the others little time to make any sort of reply.
In third was Alex Lowes, a result which will come as a welcome surprise to Crescent Suzuki and team boss Paul Denning, as the past few rounds have proved difficult. Indeed Lowes team-mate Randy DePuniet was still found languishing in 16th in the session, on a 1’46.629 and it’s clear the Frenchman is struggling much more than his British team-mate.
Slotting in behind the impressive Lowes was Chaz Davies and Tom Sykes, who will both be quietly content with their 1’44.412 and 1’44.601 laps well aware that the weekend is only beginning for a pair with victory on their minds.
Sylvain Guintoli gave Pata Honda a decent start to their Portimao efforts as he finished seventh in the session, just behind a superb opening result for Ayrton Badovini who scored sixth place on the timesheets with a 1’44.603. Fellow Pata Honda rider Michael Van Der Mark could only finish 13th fastest.
Rounding out the top ten were Jordi Torres, Matteo Baiocco and David Salom. Torres’ team-mate and second in the championship, Leon Haslam, failed to muster any type of meaningful action in the morning as he had problems with his Aprilia’s engine.
On a final British note, Leon Camier found himself 11th at the close of the session. His 1’45.238 saw him miss out on the top ten by narrow margins but it does give him and MV Agusta plenty of confidence for the weekend ahead.
