Briton Scott Redding has taken top spot in the opening practice session for round one of the 2020 FIM MOTUL Superbike World Championship, Yamaha Finance round at Phillip Island.
On a damp track, the WorldSBK rookie set the best lap of 1min41.658secs on his factory Ducati, as the 33rd season of competition in the production championship finally got underway.
With the 13 riders on track taking a cautious approach, Leon Haslam was second fastest in FP1 on the factory Honda ahead of Alex Lowes (Kawasaki), Tom Sykes (BMW), world champion Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki), American debutante Garrett Gerloff (Yamaha), world No. 2 Alvaro Bautista (Honda), Max Schieb (Kawasaki) and World Supersport graduate Federico Caricasulo (Yamaha).
Six of this weekend’s field didn’t take to the circuit, including Chaz Davies (Ducati) and Yamaha pair Michael van der Mark (Yamaha) and Toprak Razgatlioglu.
View Free Practice 1 Results Here
WorldSBK FP2 will be held at 3:00pm, with all riders on track and times expected to tumble as the precipitation clears.
World Supersport has their first of today’s two sessions at 11.30am, with 16-year-old Australian rider, Oli Bayliss (son of motorcycling legend Troy) making his international debut as a wild card in the 600 cc class.
WORLD SUPERS – THE GREAT MATES’ ESCAPE
Tickets for Australia’s opening round of the 2020 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship, Yamaha Finance round at Phillip Island from Feb 28-March 1 are available at the Gate or at worldsbk.com.au
For further event information go to worldsbk.com.au
