WorldSBK P.I. Test Image Gallery A
Andrew Gosling battles the weather at day one of this week’s two-day Phillip Island WorldSBK Test
Lap times recorded today are perhaps of little consequence as little meaningful testing actually took place in the mixed conditons. Forecast is for fine weather tomorrow.
Ducati’s Xavi Fores (31.41) ended the day quickest from Rea (31.823), Melandri (1m32.216), and Van Der Mark (1m32.440), while Leon Camier (1m32.591) rounded out the top five.
Tom Sykes was sixth fastest today, while Ducati’s Chaz Davies, who won the last six WorldSBK races in 2016, was eighth on the timesheets.
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Josh Brookes was 16th quickest with a 1m34.259 as he shakes down his recently sourced YZF-R1, the actual machine he rode to victory in the 2015 BSB Championship.
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Lorenzo Savadori – 1’32.837 (Milwaukee Aprilia) (1st)
“We’ve been continuing the work we started in Portimao and I’m looking to improve the feeling on the bike, and to make sure we have good consistency in race conditions. The tyres felt good in the wet and dry, and I’m happy with the sensations from them. The weather was a little bit crazy today, but we managed to get some dry laps in towards the end. I don’t know this track very well, and last year was my first time on a Superbike here, so it’s been really useful for me to ride today.”
Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #33) – 1:32.216 (3rd)
“It’s been quite tricky today, as weather conditions kept changing quickly. In particular, the wind was really strong and kept blowing from different directions, so it wasn’t easy to find the right feeling on the bike. The times are destined to drop quite significantly, so they’re not particularly indicative. At any rate, we found a couple of interesting solutions for the future, and we’ll start from there tomorrow.”
Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #7) – 1’32.723 (8th)
“We didn’t really get a chance to get going today. Every time we went out on track, we could only do runs of 2-3 laps before the rain started to fall again. In the last 20 minutes we were trying to make a setup change but it took a bit longer than expected and, with the red flags, we didn’t get a chance to improve our position. That said, we know that our package is solid, and considering the lack of track time we can be satisfied with our performance.”
Jordi Torres (Althea BMW Racing Team #81) (13th)
“Today we couldn’t get too much done because unfortunately it rained on and off all day long. We made some laps just to check that the bike was working well and that my shoulder is holding up OK. In the afternoon, the sun came out towards the end of the session and we had maybe an hour of useful time. There was a lot of wind but we got some work done, particularly preparing everything that we’ll need to do tomorrow.”
Eugene Laverty (Milwaukee Aprilia) – 1’33.635 (14th)
“We didn’t get much time on track today due to the weather, and that hurt us a little bit. We’ve been working with the Portimao setup, so we have a number of things to work through ahead of this weekend. We need to focus on making the bike work better around here tomorrow, and hopefully we’ll have good weather. I’m confident the guys will find some performance, and I’m looking forward to getting back on again tomorrow.”
Markus Reiterberger (Althea BMW Racing Team #21) (15th)
“I’m happy to be back in Australia, Phillip Island is such a beautiful track. Today started with really heavy rain, but overall I finished seventh in the morning’s session, having completed some laps at just the right time. The second session started dry but there was lot of stopping and starting because of rain showers. So we didn’t have a lot of real preparation time today, we will look at the data this evening and hope to be more productive tomorrow, working out which of the two bikes we have used today is better suited to the track.”
In world supersport, Frenchman Jules Cluzel was fastest on his Honda, while teenager Lachlan Epis (Kawasaki) was the leading Aussie.
2017 WorldSBK Phillip Island Test Day One Times
- Fores 1m31.412
- Rea 1m31.823
- Melandri 1m32.216
- Van Der Mark 1m32.440
- Camier 1m32.591
- Sykes 1m32.663
- De Angelis 1m32.687
- Davies 1m32.723
- Savadori 1m32.837
- Lowes 1m33.169
- Hayden 1m33.198
- Bradl 1m33.353
- Torres 1m33.482
- Laverty 1m33.635
- Reiterberger 1m33.836
- Brookes 1m34.259
- Krummenacher 1m34.822
- Ramos 1m35.385
- Russo 1m35.395
- Badovini 1m37.210
- Jeze 1m38.558
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