Lowes halves Bautista’s advantage in FP2

Full FP2 World Superbike results at Aragon

Alex Lowes has cut down Alvaro Bautista’s gap at the front to half a second in the second free practice session at Aragon which was curtailed by rain.

The Pata Yamaha rider produced with a 1m 50.126s to cut down the Spaniard’s advantage to 0.519s following the Aruba.it Racing Ducati rider’s slender improvement in FP2 with a 1m 49.607s.

Bautista continues to hold a significant pace step on his rivals largely down to his straight-line speed, taking out over a quarter of a second against the likes of Lowes and Jonathan Rea on the long back straight, with the Ducati’s V4 R power advantage remaining a key factor.

Reigning World Superbike champion Rea remains in close contention in third place, just 0.023s off Lowes, with the pair evenly matched throughout Friday practice on both long runs and in qualifying simulations.

Tom Sykes enjoyed a timely boost for BMW by taking fourth place despite suffering a small Turn 1 low side midway through FP2.

Eugene Laverty also produced impressive gains in the afternoon session for Team Go Eleven Ducati to climb to fifth place ahead of World Supersport champion Sandro Cortese on the GRT Yamaha.

Leon Haslam maintained a top 10 spot on the factory Kawasaki ahead of BMW’s Markus Reiterberger as Chaz Davies slid down to ninth place on the combined times after failing to improve on his FP1 effort.

The Aruba.it Racing Ducati rider aborted his final flying laps with conditions changing in the final five minutes as heavy rain set in after spots of rain were flagged up in the last quarter of FP2.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi grabbed the final top 10 spot for Barni Ducati to push out Marco Melandri (GRT Yamaha) and Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha) in the closing stages when the rain arrived.

Toprak Razgatlioglu led the independent Kawasaki fight for Puccetti in 13th place ahead of Leandro Mercado (Orelac) and Jordi Torres (Pedercini).

The frustrations at Honda continued with all three riders at the bottom of the times. Leon Camier, nursing a knee injury sustained in Thailand, remains 16th ahead of Moriwaki-Althea Honda team-mate Ryuichi Kiyonari – the latter making his racing debut at the Spanish track – with Alessandro Delbianco rounding out the runners for Althea Honda.