Cluzel, Barrier and VD Mark the fastest in their categories at Portimao

The Supersport World Championship and the Superstock Championships kicked off the action this Saturday with many riders on track, with maximum excitement at the Portuguese circuit of Portimao; the Superstock 1000 riders were the first to head out for FP2, with Sylvain Barrier as the fastest rider with a lap time of 1:46.217.

Behind him , Staring was 2nd, less than three tenths off the leader, so the front-runners in STK1000 were not far apart. The shame was that just as they were battling it out, a red flag was shown due to a problem with McFadden, and we had to wait several minutes before the riders could return to the track.

After that stoppage, Barrier was not overtaken, remaining the fastest, and the top 10 was completed with Staring 2nd, Savadori 3rd, Bergman 4th, Guarnoni 5th, Massei 6th, Lussiana 7th, Jezek 8th, Mercado 9th, La Marra 10th. One of the wildcards, Santi Barragan, is surprising everyone, showing a lot of pace and moving up among riders with far more experience in these conditions, so this 11th place in the second STK1000 free practice session with a lap time of 1:47.900 is very positive.

In the Supersport World Championship the fastest rider was the man from Honda, Jules Cluzel, the Frenchman set a lap time of 1:46.127, leaving his main rival, Broc Parkes, just 0.028s behind, so it was a tight free practice session 2 for SSP at Portimao.

Rounding out the top 5 were Sam Lowes 3rd, Fabien Foret 4th and Morais 5th. Meanwhile, the top ten positions went to Roccoli 6th, despite a crash, Tamburini 7th, Quarmby 8th, Talmacsi 9th and Sofuoglu, the championship leader, 10th. For his part, Baldolini with his Triumph finished 11th, so positive feelings there too.

Closing the day ahead of the fight for the WorldSBK Superpole, we saw QP2 for STK600 with Van der Mark as the fastest rider with 1:48.048, leaving his rivals just over three tenths behind, so a good pole for the man from Honda, while behind him came Russo 2nd, Nestorovic 3rd, Gamarino 4th, Schacht 5th, Jones 6th, Mulhauser 7th, Duwelz 8th, Morbidelli 9th and Chesaux 10th. For his part, our Nacho Calero Pérez was 12th in this pole position battle, and will start from that position in the race shortly.

Photo | WorldSBK