As the seventh round of the 2017 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship got underway on Friday morning at the Misano World Circuit “Marco Simoncelli” it was Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) who topped the FP1 timesheet, with a 1’34.931 lap time. Also in the top three were Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) and Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati).

After his first win of the season last time out at Donington Sykes was again the top man in the Italian sunshine, outpacing his teammate Rea by 0.052s, whilst Melandri was 0.220s off P1.

Melandri’s teammate Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) was fourth quickest, lapping just over three tenths slower than Sykes, with Leon Camier (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) in fifth place. Spaniards Xavi Fores (BARNI Racing Team) and Jordi Torres (Althea BMW Racing Team) were sixth and seventh respectively.

The top ten was completed by Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team), Eugene Laverty (Milwaukee Aprilia) and Raffaele de Rosa (Althea BMW Racing Team).

Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team) had a crash mid-session which saw him slide off, but he was soon back on his Yamaha YZF R1 and back on track. The Briton then crashed again at Turn 5 towards the end of the session but once more walked away relatively unaffected by the spill.

The WorldSBK riders will be back in action on Friday afternoon at the #RiminiWorldSBK round for FP2 at 2.30pm local time.