Bautista fastest in Friday WorldSBK practice at Aragon

News 6 Apr 2019

De Rosa and Meuffels top WorldSSP and WorldSSP300 categories.

Image: Supplied.

Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) has topped the timesheets in Friday practice at Aragon’s third round of the 2019 Motul FIM Superbike World Championship (WorldSBK) in Spain.

The factory Ducati pilot lodged a time of 1m49.607s, edging out Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Official) and four-time defending champion Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team).

The top five was completed by Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK) and Eugene Laverty (Team Goeleven) in positions four and five respectively.

Raffaele De Rosa (MV AGUSTA Reparto Corse) set the fastest time in WorldSSP, beating home championship leader Jules Cluzel (GMT94 Yamaha) and Austrian rider Thomas Gradinger (Kallio Racing). Fourth and fifth were credited to Federico Caricasulo (BARDAHL Evan Bros. WorldSSP Team) and Hikari Okubo (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing).

The combined practice results from the WorldSSP300 division saw Koen Meuffels (Freudenberg KTM WorldSSP Team) top Victor Steeman (Freudenberg KTM Junior Team) and Jan-Ole Jahnig (Freudenberg KTM Junior Team).

Australians Jack Hyde (2R Racing Team Kawasaki), Tom Edwards (ParkinGo Team Kawasaki), and Tom Bramich (Nutec – RT Motorsports by SKM – Kawasaki) were ranked 29th, 33rd and 40th respectively.