Jonathan Rea showed all his class to ensure he ended the evening on top after World Superbikes second practice at Losail in Qatar.
The session began well for the 2015 World Superbike champion as he posted a 1’59.130 to put him 2nd on the combined timesheets behind Jordi Torres, and it only really got better from there for the Ulsterman.
There were moments were Michael Van Der Mark on the Pata Honda and Tom Sykes challenged Rea’s second session supremacy, with Sykes even hitting the top of the leaderboard with a 1’58.637 midway through but as the session wore on Rea continued to post increasingly fast laps as most of the rest of the grid chose to pit following some improvements to times.
Fastest man in first practice Jordi Torres had little to offer in the opening proceedings of the second practice at Losail, pitting with 30 minutes to go along with most, but when he came back out again he looked as impressive as earlier.
Other riders continued to better their times from the earlier session too, with Chaz Davies and Michael Van Der Mark picking up the pace ahead of tomorrow’s qualifying action and that duo were joined by the likes of Xavi Fores, Alex Lowes and Leon Haslam as everyone continued to search for little improvements.
However, with little in the way of challenging the supremacy of Rea’s earlier 1’58.601, it looked as if the Ulsterman would get another boost to his confidence ahead of Superpole but Torres was able to run him close in the session towards the end.
As most of the riders were in the pits, Torres was out on the Aprilia trying everything and he eventually cracked it with a smooth 1’58.406 to take him top, trying his best to better that in the ensuing laps but it was in vain.
In the end, Rea did what he has done for the majority of the season in most sessions - practice, qualifying and race - as with five minutes remaining the Kawasaki rider really gave his ZX-10R everything, hurtling around the 3.443mile circuit to blast his way back to the top on a 1’58.324.
If that wasn’t enough, Rea decided to make sure of his superiority with a following lap as he shaved a little more off his efforts and secured a 1’58.252 and got his weekend off to a terrific start in Qatar.
