Alvaro Bautista tops opening day at Aragon

The third World Superbike round of the season began well for Álvaro Bautista, who immediately proved to be right on the pace in his home race with the Ducati Panigale V4 R.

In day one’s two free practice sessions, the 34-year-old Spanish rider was the only man to get under the 1’50 mark when he set a lap time of 1’49.692 in the morning FP1, and he then shaved off a few hundredths of a second in the afternoon run to finish the day on top with a time of 1’49.607.

Álvaro Bautista saying, “The weekend here at Aragón has begun really well because I immediately found the right feeling with the bike, like in the first two rounds of the season. My confidence level with the Panigale V4 R continues to grow rapidly and here on my home circuit it all seems even easier. Today we did a good job but we have to keep one eye on the uncertain weather conditions for the weekend. I’ve never lapped with this bike in the wet and so in case of rain I will have to get used to the conditions very quickly. If it doesn’t rain tomorrow, I’m very confident I can do a good qualifying run to start on the front row for race 1.”

Alex Lowes

Pata Yamaha WorldSBK rider, Alex Lowes, made a strong start to Round 3 of the FIM Superbike World Championship in Aragon today. The 28-year-old Briton, three times a podium finisher last time out in Thailand, was second fastest on the opening day in Spain, having posted a time of 1’50.126 in this afternoon’s second free practice session.

Alex Lowes saying, “It was a good start to the weekend today. We stayed on the same tyres for this afternoon’s session and, while I couldn’t do a long run because I’m still struggling a little bit with my wrist and don’t want to work it too hard ahead of the race, my pace was quite strong and I felt good on the bike. It was certainly the best feeling I’ve had on this track, which is really positive, and now I’m looking forward to getting back to it tomorrow and trying to improve in a couple of areas.”

Jonathan Rea

In finishing third overall in the combined times Rea was 0.542 seconds back from early pace-setter Alvaro Bautista, but just 0.023 from second placed rider Alex Lowes.

Rea was able to combine his race set-up duties with evaluating new Pirelli front and rear tyres today, finding positives in some areas. Like his peer group he will now face a final free practice session on Saturday morning, Superpole qualifying and then a full distance 18-lap opening race.

Jonathan Rea stating, “Not too bad today but this morning I struggled with some things, on the bike and with myself in the way I was riding. Things were not happening naturally. This afternoon we made some changes and I felt immediately more at home. We were just evaluating and trying to make subtle changes because we do not have too much time anymore, with two sessions on Friday in 2019. You do not have another chance now to make a change. Pirelli have also brought some different front and rear tyres to test. On the front I tried the ‘C’ option tyre which is more like the SC2 family that I liked before. We are making progress.”

It was an impressive FP2 for 2013 WorldSBK Champion Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team), who put in a blistering lap time at the end of the session to go fourth overall. With two wins at Aragon, Sykes suffered a small crash at Turn 1, losing the front end of the S1000RR.

Tom Sykes

Tom Sykes saying, “I am really enjoying riding my BMW S 1000 RR here in Aragon, again we are still losing a lot of time in the final sector along the back straight however we are very strong in the corners. The second session we ended up in fourth which is quite good really considering many things. Rather than trying out long runs during the day I opted in making a few chassis and electronic changes so we had quite a lot to do. I had a small crash in T1 which set us back a little, but I am happy with information from today, I am expecting we put this together into an ever better package for tomorrow.”

His teammate, Markus Reiterberger, had a much better session than in the morning. The German placed in eighth overall, as the BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team continue to improve their bike’s aerodynamics, as well as dominating the sector times in sector three.

Eugene Laverty (Team Goeleven) had his best session of the 2019 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship, improving to fifth overall. Top Independent rider, the Irishman has continued to build on the steps he and the team made in Thailand, making for a promising European stint of the season. Fellow Independent team rival, Sandro Cortese (GRT Yamaha WorldSBK) was just a fraction off the 2013 runner-up’s pace in sixth position.

Sandro Cortese

Sandro Cortese ended the day sixth on the timesheet, with GRT Yamaha Supported WorldSBK teammate, Marco Melandri, five places further back in 11th. Michael van der Mark endured a difficult opening day in Aragon, finishing 12th on combined times after struggling to find a good feeling with his Yamaha YZF-R1.

Sandro Cortese saying, “A very positive opening. We worked hard between FP1 and FP2 because I struggled a lot initially this morning, but throughout the day we managed to improve a lot by making some big changes to the set-up of the bike. Of course, it was made more difficult by the fact that this my first time here on the Superbike and, while I know the racetrack, it’s different on the bigger bike. In FP2 the pace was there and now we need to see tomorrow how the race will go.”

Chaz Davies

Chaz Davies started the day well with fourth-quickest time in the first free practice session in 1’50.920. For the afternoon, the Welsh rider made a few small modifications to the bike to try and further improve on his time, but his effort came to nothing in the last few minutes when the rain began to fall. Chaz ended the first day of practice in ninth place overall.

Chaz Davies explaining, “This morning’s session was quite decent, but then I had a frustrating second session in the afternoon. We played around with the bike a little but it felt like it changed quite a lot, and I got a bit more comfortable with it at the end of the second session then three-quarters of the way round my fast lap I hit a wall of rain so had to abort. I felt we made a bit of progress with some of the vibration issues we’ve been having but it changed the bike quite a bit so there are pros and cons. With a good run I think we shouldn’t be in too bad a shape with race pace so we’ll try again tomorrow.”