Bautista pushes clear of Rea in Thailand
Alvaro Bautista opens up his advantage on the times over Jonathan Rea during the second free practice session in Thailand
Full FP2 results from Thailand WorldSBK
Alvaro Bautista has opened up his advantage on the times over Jonathan Rea during the second free practice session in Thailand.
The Aruba.it Racing Ducati rider narrowly topped opening practice ahead of the defending World Superbike champion but in the second session the Spaniard found significant pace gains over a single lap to produce a 1m 32.971s in the hot conditions.
Rea was also able to improve in FP2 but at a smaller rate during the race runs, but as the pace sharpened at the end of the session Bautista extended his advantage to 0.298s.
While the pair look fairly well matched on long run pace, and a step ahead of the rest of the World Superbike grid, Bautista dominated the opening half of the lap with the Ducati V4 R’s top-end speed with Rea able to fight back in the tight and twisty second half of the lap in Buriram.
With the final-lap flyers being notched up at the end of FP2, Sandro Cortese vaulted into third place for GRT Yamaha to lead the all-Yamaha train behind the top two.
Both Pata Yamaha riders Alex Lowes and Michael van der Mark ended the session within one-tenth of Cortese in fourth and fifth respectively with GRT Yamaha’s Marco Melandri a step back in sixth place.
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Leon Haslam improved late on to take seventh place on the factory Kawasaki ahead of Go Eleven Ducati’s Eugene Laverty, while Moriwaki-Althea Honda’s Leon Camier jumped up to ninth place with his final effort in FP2.
That saw BMW’s Tom Sykes moved down to 10th place with Chaz Davies edged to 11th place struggling to replicate team-mate Bautista’s dominant pace on the factory Ducati.
Markus Reiterberger grabbed 12th place for BMW ahead of Pedercini Kawasaki’s Jordi Torres and Barni Ducati’s Michael Ruben Rinaldi – the latter making his debut at the Thai track.
Leandro Mercado rounded out the top 15 on the Orelac Racing VerdNatura Kawasaki ahead of three-time BSB champion Ryuichi Kiyonari on the second factory Honda.
Wildcard rider Thitipong Warokorn (Kawasaki Thailand Racing Team) ended the session 17th ahead of both Toprak Razgatlioglu (Puccetti Kawasaki) and Alessandro Delbianco (Althea Mie Honda).
