WSBK Superbike Aragón FP2: And Davies remembered everyone fondly

The Welshman set the best time in the second free practice session of the day at the Motorland Aragón circuit, proving that he will still have to be counted on this season despite his departure from the Ducati factory team. Toprak Razgatlioglu, the fastest driver at the end of FP1, remains the fastest man of the day, the only one to have so far passed the 1'49 zone.

After the first three quarters of an hour of riding this morning, the 23 Superbike riders returned to the track this afternoon to try to finish the first day of the 2021 championship at the top of the timesheet.

No doubt a little upset to have had the spotlight stolen during the first free practice session, the defending champion Jonathan Rhea wasted no time in taking the best provisional time, ahead of Alvaro Bautista (Honda) and his teammate at Kawasaki alex lowes.

Fear for Van der Mark, who causes the red flag to come out.

 

The start of the session was marked by the violent exit from the track of Michael van der Mark on the descent of turn 8, which triggered the raising of the red flag. The Dutchman in fact lost the front of his motorcycle at high speed, which ended up embedded in the wall of tires in a plume of smoke. Groggy on the spot number 60, author of the ninth beat this morning, suffered no after-effects following this accident and was able to return to his garage without incident.

The restart took place after an interruption of just a quarter of an hour, time to repair the barriers located outside turn 8 in order to allow the competition to resume in complete safety. And with just over half an hour still remaining, the drivers adopted a cautious approach, limiting their attempts to attack until the final minutes of racing.

Thus, Rea remained ahead of the two Team HRC drivers, Bautista and Leon Haslam. The two Honda riders were in fact placed between their Kawasaki counterparts, with Lowes occupying fourth place for a time.

Summary of the results of the 2020 edition:

WSBK Superbike Aragon	August 2020	May 2021
FP1	1'50.543 Chaz Davies	1'49.952 Toprak Razgatlioglu
FP2	1'50.865 Jonathan Rea	1'50.400 Chaz Davies
FP3	1'50.287 Jonathan Rea
Super poles	1'48.860 Jonathan Rea
Race 1	Redding, Davies, Rea
Warm Up	1'50.142 Jonathan Rea
Superpole race	Rea, Redding, Van der Mark
Race 2	Rea, Davies, Bautista
All time lap record	1'48.860 Jonathan Rea (2020)

 

Here’s Davies again!

But this hierarchy has been called into question by a certain Chaz Davies, who took the lead with 15 minutes remaining in this second session of the day. The Welshman, defector to Go Eleven this season, reminded everyone that they should not bury it, especially with a 2021 version of the Panigale V4 R and already seven successes acquired in the past on the Spanish track.

 

An affront for Rea, who saw the number 7 beat him by almost three tenths of a second (with a 1'50.400 as best time), but especially for the riders of the Ducati factory team, first and foremost among whom Scott Redding, winner here last year at the end of Race 1.

The Briton, 11th this morning, still managed a leap forward during these FP2, ultimately signing the third best time ahead of the HRC drivers. His teammate, Michael Ruben Rinaldi, for his part could not do better than seventh, behind Lowes.

Razgatlioglu remains fastest of the day

Toprak Razgatlioglu finished this second session in eighth position. The Turk will, however, still be able to have the satisfaction of being the fastest driver overall at the end of this first day, and the only one to have gone below the 1'50 mark.

The top 10 is completed by Axel Bassani on Ducati, and Garrett gerloff, less dashing than this morning, when the American had pocketed the third time. As for the French, they experienced another difficult session, Christophe Ponsson falling in turn 5 at the start of the last quarter of an hour, while Lucas Mahias could not do better than 20th.

The first day of the 2021 Superbike season now closed, the rest of the events will now take place tomorrow from 9 a.m. with the holding of FP3. A final practice gallop which will be a good indicator of everyone's level in view of the first Superpole of the year, which will take place from 11:10 a.m.

FP2 results – Superbike – Aragon:

Credit classification and photos: WorldSBK.com