2016 WSBK: Phillip Island Friday Practice Results and Summary

Finally the racing season is underway with the tyres going a full circle at Phillip Island, Australia for the first time in Free Practice 1 & 2 on Friday.

Tom Sykes topped the first session with a late charge at the end of the session on his Kawasaki ZX-10R. While Frenchman Sylvain Guintoli who led much of the session was relegated to 2nd, less that a hundredth of a second behind. Jonathan Rea followed a thousandth of a second behind in 3rd place. The Yamaha R1 of Guintoli showing promise in the first session of the first race weekend of the season, an indicator of what is to come in 2016.

Rain interrupted the session, but the short burst of rainfall didn’t hamper anyone considerably. Camier, Davies, Hayden, Reiterberger, Van Der Mark,  Giugliano and Lowes rounded out the top ten. It was a pleasant surprise to see strong performances from Camier on the MV Agusta, and Hayden and Reiterberger in their first year of WSBK.

Just to prove how close the racing is in WSBK, the top ten guys were within four tenths of a second of the fastest time!

Free Practice 2 saw the order changing up a bit, with Guintoli going from Mr. Consistent to the Flying Frenchman on his Yamaha! The Dutchman van der Mark went second quickest, 3 tenths of the pace of Sylvain. The two Kawasakis of Rea and Sykes followed with another strong lap by Camier on the MV Agusta. Hayden, Guigliano, Davies, Savadori and Lowes rounded out the top ten, who were within a second of the fastest time.

The 10 fastest guys from the combined times of FP1 and FP2 will go straight to Superpole 2, while the rest have another shot in Superpole 1. The two fastest guys from Superpole 1 will step up to SP2 and accordingly the race grid will be finalized.

Don’t forget to tune into the WorldSbk Superpole and Race tomorrow. Schedule below-

Saturday (IST)
SP1 – 0700-0715hrs
SP2 – 0725-0740hrs
Race1 – 0930hrs

Sunday
WSS Race – 0800hrs
WSBK Race 2 – 0930hrs