Superbikes | Jerez round, FP2: Alvaro Bautista takes the lead

Alvaro Bautista (ARUBA.IT Racing – Ducati), the home rider, concluded the second free practice session of the Acerbis Spanish Round at the head of the group in Jerez de la Frontera.

The session was interrupted by the red flag, displayed following Loris Baz's (Ten Kate Racing – Yamaha) crash at turn 4 to allow the stewards to clear the track of debris; in fact, the rider fortunately did not suffer any consequences but the motorbike was destroyed in the impact.

Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Team) continues to confirm the progress made during FP1: he is in fact the rider leading the combined time classification, which takes both results into account: his teammate Alex Lowes also showed a good pace, finishing fourth fastest.

Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) moved up to third place, improving compared to the morning tests, while his teammate Leon Haslam did not go beyond ninth.

Another rider who increased the pace compared to the first session is Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team): the Englishman is currently in fifth position and can now focus on tomorrow's Tissot Superpole.
Sixth time despite a fall for Marco Melandri (GRT Yamaha), who also managed to stay ahead of his teammate Sandro Cortese, seventh ahead of Michael Ruben Rinaldi (BARNI Racing Team), who placed the second Ducati at the finish line given the difficulties encountered from Chaz Davies, only eleventh.
In addition to the aforementioned Haslam, ninth, Toprak Razgatlioglu (Turkish Puccetti Racing) completes the top 10: the gaps in the top ten are still contained within a second even when looking at the combined times, a sign of great balance on the track.

Finally, we would like to point out the crash of Markus Reiterberger (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team): a lot of bad luck for the German rider who, after the technical problems suffered in FP1, put together very few laps even in the second session.

See you tomorrow, Saturday 8 June, with the third and final free practice session in the morning, the Tissot-Superpole and above all the eagerly awaited start of Race1.