Lowes and Guintoli top the Superbike FP1 at Istanbul Park

The World Superbike and Supersport Championship got underway today at Istanbul Park, one of the new venues for the 2013 season, so there is great interest in seeing what will happen on the Turkish track, although the start was somewhat complicated due to sand on the circuit.

For this occasion we will only have SSP and SBK in action, with the Supersport riders the first to head out on track, with a longer than usual free practice session of over an hour to get to know this new circuit, which is new for almost all the riders in the category. The fastest in this FP1 was Sam Lowes, with a time of 2:00.455.

The session was delayed due to the sand, but after the restart we saw Sam Lowes set the best time after 22 laps, followed by Zanetti, 0.661s behind the leader. The rest of the top 10 was completed by Marino in 3rd, Tamburini 4th, VD Mark 5th, Sofuoglu 6th, Salom 7th, Coghlan 8th, Rolfo 9th and Leonov 10th. Baldolini was 15th and our Calero Pérez 25th.

Behind them it was the turn of the premier class, Superbikes, with Sylvain Guintoli the best in this FP1, setting a time of 1:56.851, the only rider to run under 1:57, with the rest all above 1:57, so the pace shown by the Frenchman was impressive. Meanwhile, second place went to Marco Melandri, 0.667s behind the leader. Some riders knew this track, but most had never ridden it, so there is a lot of work ahead.

The top 10 was completed by Sykes in 3rd, Haslam 4th, Elías 5th, Giugliano 6th, Cluzel 7th, Davies 8th, Laverty 9th and Checa 10th. It was a busy session with several crashes, including that of our Carlos Checa; we also saw Camier, Badovini and a few others with problems. We must highlight the good feeling of Elías, who stayed within the top ten positions throughout the session, even leading for several minutes, so there is a lot of attention on him, sitting 1.5s behind the leader.

Now on to QP1.

Photo | WorldSBK and teams