WorldSBK Donington Park FP | Garrett Gerloff steals a march on Donington debut

Garrett Gerloff took no time getting back into the WorldSBK swing of things as he topped the Friday Free Practice timesheets at Donington Park just five days after making his MotoGP debut at Assen.

The American racer has been a man in demand recently following his guest outing in place of Franco Morbidelli on the Petronas SRT Yamaha for the Dutch TT, but back on the R1 he was right on form to snatch the top spot in the closing stages of FP2.

The 1m 27.524secs lap was enough to topple Jonathan Rea from the summit, the Kawasaki man having looked on course to end Friday in front having also led the way after FP1.

However, the defending champion and series leader would settle for second, resisting man of the moment Toprak Razgatlioglu, the Turk coming into the day having had a new two-year deal with Yamaha in WorldSBK confirmed. 

He was lucky not to suffer more problems though when he got it all wrong under braking for Goddards, the R1 kicking up at the rear and forcing him off the circuit in recovery.

There's hard braking, then there's Toprak's version of hard-braking, and then there's this!

TOP save @toprak_tr54 Just how do you do it? @PataYamahaBRIXX #GBRWorldSBK pic.twitter.com/YGSEAi3ROE

— WorldSBK (@WorldSBK) July 2, 2021

Alex Lowes followed up in fourth on the second of the Kawasaki ZX-10RRs, while fan favourite Scott Redding came away as the best placed Ducati rider in fifth place, just ahead of Michael Ruben Rinaldi in sixth.

Local boy Leon Haslam ended his day seventh best in a step forward for Honda, ahead of Lucas Mahias on the privateer Puccetti Kawasaki, top BMW rider Michael van der Mark and Andrea Locatelli on the factory Yamaha R1.

Elsewhere, Tom Sykes was third fastest in the morning but a crash - his second of the day - at Turn 6 early on FP2 saw him slide down the timesheets to 11th. Luke Mossey, in a wild-card outing for Pedercini Kawasaki, was 17th fastest and the shoulder-injured Chaz Davies was 12th best.

Kohta Nozane has been forced out of the remainder of the weekend as a consequence of the fracture in his finger, sustained in a crash during testing at Navarra.

2021 WorldSBK Donington Park | Friday FP1 - FP2 Results [Combined]