Alex Lowes tops Saturday morning practice, then crashes...

Suzuki rookie Alex Lowes will head into this afternoon’s final battle for grid positions at the 2014 Phillip Island world superbike season opener full of confidence after turning the fastest lap across the three timed practice sessions.

A number of riders made a valiant attempt to knock him off the top perch, but the Briton wouldn’t have any of it as he completed the practice sessions with a best lap of 1min30.566sec – but then some of his good work came undone with a crash at turn 11.

Lowes nudged out Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty (1:30.801), Ducati pair Davide Guigliano (1:30.864) and Chaz Davies (1:30.962) and Kawasaki’s world champion Tom Sykes (1:30.982).

Meanwhile, Australia’s Glenn Allerton (1:31.962) was in top form, and finished practice as the second fastest EVO rider on the BMW he only rode for the first time yesterday.

Italian Niccolo Canepa (Ducati, 1:31.061) set the EVO pace, and also left a number of the fully fledged superbike riders red-faced after completing timed practice as sixth fastest overall, ahead of Sylvain Guintoli (Aprilia, 1:30.31.087), Jonathan Rea (Honda, 1:31.091), Marco Melandri (Aprilia, 1:31.137) and Loris Baz (Kawasaki, 1:31.211).

Melandri also crashed at high-speed this morning, as did Erik Buell Racing’s Geoff May and Aussie Matt Walters (Kawasaki). Walters ended up 21st overall.

There will be a fourth ‘untimed’ practice session at 12:30pm, before Superpole qualifying begins at 3:0opm. In the revised Superpole structure, which mirrors the same system used in MotoGP, the top 20 times across the first three practice sessions will take part.

The top 10 fastest riders will be seeded directly into Superpole 2, while the riders classified from 11-20 will take part in Superpole 1. The fastest two riders in Superpole 1 will progress to Superpole 2, making a total of 12 riders competing for the first 12 grid positions.

1	22 A.LOWES	GBR	VoltcomCrescentSuzuki	SuzukiGSX-R1000	1’30.566			10	176,689	305,9
2	58 E.LAVERTY	IRL	VoltcomCrescentSuzuki	SuzukiGSX-R1000	1’30.801	0.235	0.235	19	176,232	307,7
3	34 D.GIUGLIANO	ITA	DucatiSuperbikeTeam	Ducati1199PanigaleR	1’30.864	0.298	0.063	13	176,109	304,2
4	7 C.DAVIES	GBR	DucatiSuperbikeTeam	Ducati1199PanigaleR	1’30.962	0.396	0.098	14	175,920	305,9
5	1 T. SYKES	GBR	KawasakiRacingTeam	KawasakiZX-10R	1’30.982	0.416	0.020	16	175,881	309,5
6	59 N.CANEPA	ITA	AltheaRacing	Ducati1199 PanigaleREVO	1’31.065	0.499	0.083	19	175,721	299,2
7	50 S.GUINTOLI	FRA	ApriliaRacingTeam	ApriliaRSV4Factory	1’31.087	0.521	0.022	13	175,678	314,9
8	65 J. REA	GBR	PATAHondaWorldSuperbike	HondaCBR1000RR	1’31.091	0.525	0.004	19	175,670	309,5
9	76 L. BAZ	FRA	KawasakiRacingTeam	KawasakiZX-10R	1’31.211	0.645	0.120	18	175,439	308,6
10	33 M.MELANDRI	ITA	ApriliaRacingTeam	ApriliaRSV4Factory	1’31.329	0.763	0.118	5	175,213	313,0
11	24 T. ELIAS	ESP	RedDevilsRoma	ApriliaRSV4Factory	1’31.412	0.846	0.083	17	175,054	316,7
12	91 L. HASLAM	GBR	PATAHondaWorldSuperbike	HondaCBR1000RR	1’31.430	0.864	0.018	15	175,019	308,6
13	14 G.ALLERTON	AUS	BMWMotorradItaliaSBK	BMWS1000RREVO	1’31.962	1.396	0.532	19	174,007	302,5
14	44 D.SALOM	ESP	KawasakiRacingTeam	KawasakiZX-10REVO	1’32.140	1.574	0.178	19	173,671	297,5
15	9 F. FORET	FRA	MAHIRacingTeam India	KawasakiZX-10REVO	1’32.382	1.816	0.242	21	173,216	291,9
16	71 C.CORTI	ITA	MVAgustaRC-YakhnichM.	MVAgustaF4RR	1’32.615	2.049	0.233	14	172,780	300,0
17	32 S.MORAIS	RSA	IRONBRAINKawasakiSBK	KawasakiZX-10REVO	1’32.926	2.360	0.311	19	172,202	292,7
18	11 J. GUARNONI	FRA	MRSKawasaki	KawasakiZX-10REVO	1’33.096	2.530	0.170	16	171,887	291,1
19	21 A.ANDREOZZI	ITA	TeamPedercini	KawasakiZX-10REVO	1’33.722	3.156	0.626	18	170,739	290,3
20	10 I. TOTH	HUN	BMW TeamToth	BMWS1000RR	1’34.249	3.683	0.527	16	169,784	306,8
21	12 M.WALTERS	AUS	TeamPedercini	KawasakiZX-10REVO	1’34.453	3.887	0.204	14	169,418	291,1
22	20 A.YATES	USA	Team HeroEBR	EBR1190 RX	1’35.521	4.955	1.068	20	167,523	273,4
23	99 G.MAY	USA	Team HeroEBR	EBR1190 RX	1’36.150	5.584	0.629	3	166,427	287,2
24	56 P. SEBESTYEN	HUN	BMWTeamToth	BMWS1000RREVO	1’37.274	6.708	1.124	10	164,504	287,2