Lowes and Fabrizio lead FP1 of SBK in Australia

The World Superbike and Supersport championship officially got underway today with the first free practice sessions of both championships at Phillip Island Circuit, where we saw Sam Lowes as the fastest rider in SSP and Michel Fabrizio in SBK.

The first riders to take to the Australian track were the Supersport boys, although it was not a quiet morning, as the session was marked by many incidents, specifically 12 crashes and five red flags on track, which meant the Superbike free practice session was delayed to clean the affected areas. Fortunately, none of them seem to have been serious, with one of the last being Van der Mark’s crash, fortunately without consequences.

Despite those problems, the fastest rider was Lowes with a time of 1:33.294 on his Yamaha. It shows that Sam is very strong and has been demonstrating it throughout the pre-season, so he is one of the favourites for 2013. Behind him was the 2012 SSP World Champion, Kenan Sofuoglu, who was almost three tenths off the Briton’s time, while third place went to the Turk’s teammate, Fabien Foret, who was already more than a second off Lowes’ time.

Completing the top 10 were Van der Mark in 4th, who was one of the crash victims but fortunately is fine; while fifth place went to David Salom, our Mallorcan is showing strength and is with the leading group, it is going to be a very intense season; 6th position for Leonov, Scassa 7th, Roccoli 8th, Rolfo 9th, Curtain 10th. For his part, Baldolini was 14th and Nacho Calero 31st.

In Superbikes we had a calmer session “so to speak”, there were some crashes, but not as many and no red flags, so the session ran fairly continuously. With one rider standing out from the start, Michel Fabrizio, the Italian on his Aprilia gave his maximum and after setting a great time of 1:32.001 shortly after the session began, then in the final minutes he finished off with several fast laps and achieving a 1:31.218. Behind him was Leon Haslam, but more than half a second off the Italian, while the top 10 was completed by Leon Camier in 3rd almost six tenths back; with Guintoli 4th being the last rider to set a 1:31.

The fifth position for Davies, Melandri 6th, Sykes 7th, Rea 8th, Checa 9th and Giugliano 10th. The sad part of the session was Carlos Checa’s crash halfway through, just when he was starting to lower lap times, as it knocked him out of action; his teammate Badovini also went down; for now both are fine.

Soon it will be time for QP1 for both championships.

Photo | WorldSBK and teams