Pata Honda rider Jonathan Rea was fastest on the opening day of the fourth-round World Superbike championship meeting at Imola in Italy, with the second free practice session Friday afternoon cut short by 12 minutes.
A broken drainage cover at turn four at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari caused a red flag and, with track workers unable to repair it, the day’s activities were abandoned.
Rea’s Pata Honda team-mate, Leon Haslam, who had been preparing to return to the track with fresh tyres when today’s session was cancelled, was seventh fastest overall in today’s two free practices at the 4.936km Imola circuit.
A full World Superbike schedule is expected to run at Imola today, with Free Practice 3 going at 09.45 to determine which riders will take part in the afternoon Superpole sessions.
Jonathan Rea - 1stI really enjoyed being back at Imola today. The bike is clearly working quite well here butwe still need to make some good improvements, especially getting the power down off theslower corners and final turning with engine brake. But for our first day we’ve got to behappy because our pace is OK. The ultimate lap time I didn’t think was very fast comparedto the race or the test here last year. But the track is quite fresh and there’s not a lot ofrubber down – there haven’t been any big meetings here before us. Tomorrow when thetrack gets a bit more rubbered-in I think you’ll see the pace starting to hot up a little bit.We’ll work hard tonight to refine the bike even more and hopefully go with that pace.
Leon Haslam - 7thThis morning felt pretty good and I did the whole session on the harder tyre. I felt we couldhave got into the 48s with our last tyre but I got held up a bit. This afternoon I got a coupleof laps together on the SC0. I went slightly quicker but couldn’t really get a good laptogether and then the red flag came out. I just didn’t really get a chance to go for a goodlap time on a softer tyre. Generally, I felt really happy this morning and just didn’t get areally good go at it this afternoon.
Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator
The day was cut short by 12 minutes but Jonathan was in P1, which is good. He did a littlerun with some good lap times but still we have to improve in some sectors. If you’re P1 youcannot complain too much, though – there’s work to do but it was a good day for Jonathan.On Leon’s side of the garage it was a shame that the session was cut short because wehad just put in new tyres and he was ready to go. I’m sure he would have improved his laptime but it didn’t happen. The morning was a little better than this afternoon, when hestruggled a bit with the grip, but overall a positive day.
Free Practice Results
1 Jonathan Rea 1m48.147s GBR HONDA Pata Honda2 Tom Sykes 1m48.187s GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team3 Marco Melandri 1m48.261s ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team4 Sylvain Guintoli 1m48.323s FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team5 Davide Guigliano 1m48.329s ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team6 Chaz Davies 1m48.592s GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team7 Leon Haslam 1m48.999s GBR HONDA Pata Honda8 Eugene Laverty 1m49.259s IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki9 Loris Baz 1m49.600s FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team10 Leon Camier 1m49.610s GBR BMW BMW Motorrad Italia Superbike Team
