World Champion Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) led the way in FP1 on Friday morning at the PATA UK Round, registering a 1’27.828 lap of the Donington Park circuit to top the timesheet after a crash earlier in the session. He was joined in the top three by his teammate Tom Sykes and Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati).

Rea went down in the opening minutes of the first practice of the weekend for the WorldSBK riders but was unharmed and went on to lap quicker than any of his rivals, with the master of Donington Sykes lapping just +0.110s slower in second place. Melandri lapped +0.325s behind Rea in third.

Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) was half a second down on P1 in fourth, whilst the top five was completed by Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team), who like Rea also crashed in FP1.

A top ten featuring six British riders was rounded out by wildcard Leon Haslam (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing), Lorenzo Savadori (Milwaukee Aprilia), Leon Camier (MV Agusta Reparto Corse), Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team) and Eugene Laverty (Milwaukee Aprilia).

In addition to Rea and Van der Mark, Alex De Angelis (Pedercini Racing SC-Project) also crashed in the session, going down without major consequence at turn 1.

The WorldSBK riders will be back on track at the sixth round of 2017 at 2.30pm local time for FP2.