SBK| Acerbis Qatar Round, FP2: Rea confirms his lead

At the end of the first day of WorldSBK at the Acerbis Qatar Round, Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) topped the combined time table, with the fastest lap of 1'57.666, under the floodlights that lit up the Losail International like day Circuit.

The Northern Irishman topped the standings in both FP1 and FP2 aboard his Kawasaki ZX-10RR on the desert circuit and in the first session he finished with a good margin of +0.689s, ahead of his teammate Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team).

Rea was unable to improve in FP2, unlike Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team) who closed the gap and finished +0.259s behind the reigning champion. FP2 was briefly interrupted by a technical problem at turn 10 for the third best driver of the day Sykes, but the riders soon returned to the track as soon as the circuit was properly cleaned.

Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) was the fourth fastest rider and Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team) completed the top 5. In this final round of the season in Qatar, Sykes and Davies will fight for second place in the general classification, behind Rea.

Xavi Fores (BARNI Racing Team), Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati), Jordi Torres (Althea BMW Racing Team), Eugene Laverty (Milwaukee Aprilia) and Lorenzo Savadori are in the top 10. Savadori crashed twice in FP2, the first time at turn 16 and the second at turn 14.

The riders will return to the track tomorrow for FP3 at 14.20pm, before tackling the Superpole starting at 16.30pm and Race1 at 19.00pm.