Milwaukee Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty ended the opening day of WorldSBK free practice in Qatar at the top of the timesheets, beating countryman Jonathan Rea by a little less than two tenths of a second in the final session.
But it was squeaky bum time for championship runner-up contenders Chaz Davies and Michael van der Mark who both only just squeezed into Superpole two late in the session, grabbing eighth and ninth places with only a minute or so to spare.
Laverty has been fast all day on the RSVR he won’t be riding next season and topped off a fast Friday with a 1’57.323 under the Losail floodlights with just a minute to spare. Rea had gone quickest with a 1’57.506 at with 12 minutes left but Laverty was having none of it.
Tom Sykes, who replaces the Irishman in Shaun Muir’s BMW-bound team next season, had set tone early doors with a 1’57.536 after having an earlier laptime deleted, but he was soon eclipsed by Rea’s 1’57.506 A 1’57.514 later on was enough to claim third place.
Alex Lowes couldn’t find any more time out of his Pata Yamaha in session three but his 1’57.656 from the middle period kept him in fourth place. Lorenzo Savadori bit the screen to end in fifth place on 1’57.799.
Loris Baz put in some good work on the Althea BMW to end in sixth, one ahead of Marco Melandri who improved by four-tenths to end in seventh but is six-tenths off the pace.
Van der Mark was languishing as far down as 13th as the clock ticked down but he found a 1’57.980 - eight-tenths faster than his session two time - to claim eighth and a place in SP2. Davies flew in with a 1’58.046 with Toprak Razgatlioglu only 0.008s behind on the Petrucci Kawasaki.
Tati Mercado missed SP2 by a tenth of a second with Xavi Fores one place down. The Red Bull Hondas ended in 13th and 14th place.
