Aprilia leads Honda in WorldSBK FP2 at Phillip Island

Lorenzo Savadori on top in FP2

Leon Camier makes great strides on the Honda

A damp track in this morning’s FP1 session saw riders taking things carefully as the opening official practice session got underway to signal the start of the opening round of the 2018 FIM Superbike World Championship.

A dry track for FP2 saw riders really start to get down to business. These days, the Free Practice sessions on Friday count towards qualifying for Superpole, while the Saturday morning practice sessions do not. Thus the second of the three 40-minute FP sessions set down for today, which got underway at 1225 today, could prove to be vitally important should rain fall again before the final of the three sessions kicks off at 1535 this afternoon.

Leon Camier had Honda on the top of the timesheets for much of the late part of FP2 but was knocked out of top spot by Lorenzo Savadori on the Aprilia in the dying seconds of the session, a scorching 1m30.407s lap to the Italian.

The second of the two Milwaukee Aprilia machines ridden by Eugene Laverty was third quickest ahead of Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes and Ducati’s Marco Melandri. The Panigale R of Melandri looked very lively during his laps of the circuit, even nervous perhaps, wiggling its way all the way down the main straight more than once.

Marco Melandri - Image by GeeBee — Marco Melandri – Image by GeeBee

Defending World Champion Jonathan Rea was sixth quickest ahead of the leading Yamaha of Michael Van der Mark. The Dutchman’s teammate Alex Lowes crashed early in the session and never got back out to set a competitive lap time.

Jonathan Rea - Image by GeeBee — Jonathan Rea – Image by GeeBee

Troy Herfoss was the quickest Australian with a 1m32.683 on the Penrite Honda, almost four-tenths slower than his best during the official test earlier in the week.

Wayne Maxwell was 19th after recording a 1m32.723 to be ahead of YRT team-mate Daniel Falzon, the young South Australian stopping the clocks at 1m33.124.