Lowes and Melandri the fastest FP1 SBK in Moscow

The World Superbike and Supersport Championship has already held the first free practice sessions at the Moscow Raceway, where Sam Lowes and Marco Melandri have set the fastest lap times in both championships.

By Gloria24 August 2012 · 3 min read

The World Superbike and Supersport Championship officially got underway today at the Moscow Raceway, where riders took to the track for the first time at the 11th round of the championship, in what were the first free practice sessions for both series.
The first to head out were the Supersport riders, and the fastest in this first outing was Sam Lowes. The Briton saw Jules Cluzel take the lead, but he quickly began lowering lap times until he reached an impressive 1:38.396, improving on the time he set in the official test session last Wednesday.

So Lowes looked very strong, and all this despite a small scare that ended without consequence. He was able to return to the track without problems. Cluzel led from the start, but Lowes overtook him and took second place at the end, although only just, 0.089s behind. Completing the top three was Kenan Sofuoglu, the last rider to run a lap under 1:38; everyone else was already over 1:39.

The top 10 was Parkes 4th, Morais 5th, Quarmby 6th, Antonelli 7th, Day 8th, Tamburini 9th and Baldolini 10th. On a circuit with few reference points and several crashes in the same area, turn 3, which appears to be the most complex section, with falls by Toth, Linfoot and also Scholtz.

The World Superbike category went out a little later, after the national Cup, and eager to make their debut at this Russian round, so there was much excitement to see the lap times they could set in this first outing of the SBK free practice.

The start was complicated, as Loris Baz went down, followed by Leon Camier, causing these crashes that brought out the red flag so the incidents could be properly attended to and the track restored to good condition. So everyone returned to the pits, and afterwards Marco Melandri went out with great determination, finally becoming the fastest rider with a time of 1:35.799.

Behind him was Chaz Davies, but well off the pace of the man in , more than half a second back, so the 33 showed great strength, while Giugliano was 3rd at 0.545s, with Guintoli 4th at 0.592s and Hiroshi Aoyama closing the top five at over 0.7 seconds, so Melandri was dominating.

For his part, Carlos Checa was 6th, 0.721s off the FP1 leader, while David Salom put in a great session and adapted quickly to this circuit, finishing in 13th position just over a second from the first.