Estoril WSBK: Razgatlioglu leads Redding, Rea on Friday

Much like the previous weekend's Aragon season opener, the day's quickest time was set in the morning FP1 session, with Razgatlioglu again setting the overall pace on the Yamaha M1.

Factory Ducati rider Scott Redding led early in FP1 with a time of 1m39.277s, before Razgatlioglu lowered the benchmark to a 1m37.883s.

Redding returned to the top 20 minutes into the session after posting a 1m37.624s, before a flurry of laptimes in the dying minutes changed the order at the top again.

Kawasaki's Alex Lowes was the first rider to usurp Redding from the top spot with a 1m37.604s, before teammate Jonathan Rea managed to find another tenth of a second to make it a one-two for the Japanese marque.

However, Razgatlioglu then managed to gain a whopping half a second on his final attempt, lapping the circuit in 1m36.920s to comfortably end the day the quickest of all.

The Turkish rider's afternoon effort of 1m37.284s would have also been good enough for the overall fastest time of Friday, such was his advantage over the rest of the field in both sessions.

The closest challenger to Razgatlioglu was Redding, who improved to a 1m37.334s in the afternoon to end up second overall ahead of Kawasaki duo Rea and Lowes.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi finished third in FP2 and fifth overall on the second factory Ducati with a time of 1m37.815s, with Garrett Gerloff ending up sixth for GRT Yamaha.

BMW satellite riders Eugene Laverty and Jonas Folger impressed with their pace on Friday, finishing fifth and seventh respectively in FP1 and also featuring inside the top 10 in the afternoon.

Factory BMW rider Tom Sykes did manage to beat both of them in FP2, but his time of 1m38.039s was slower than their best efforts from the morning effort.

GoEleven Ducati rider Chaz Davies finished sixth and 15th in the two sessions with a best time of 1m37.896s set in FP1.

Honda had a difficult day in Portugal with Leon Haslam finishing 12th in both sessions and Alvaro Bautista suffering three crashes, ending up 14th and 13th in FP1 and FP2 respectively.

Michael van der Mark, competing in his second event for BMW after leaving Yamaha over the winter, set a best time of 1m38.293s to end up 11th quickest in the afternoon.

The second session of the day was red flagged with less than three minutes left on the clock when GRT's Kohta Nozane crashed heavily at Turn 13 in a highside incident. Following medical checks, he has been declared fit for the rest of the weekend.

Estoril WSBK - FP1 results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	54	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Yamaha	1'36.920
2	1	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki	1'37.501	0.581
3	22	Alex Lowes	Kawasaki	1'37.604	0.684
4	45	Scott Redding	Ducati	1'37.624	0.704
5	50	Eugene Laverty	BMW	1'37.853	0.933
6	7	Chaz Davies	Ducati	1'37.896	0.976
7	94	Jonas Folger	BMW	1'37.941	1.021
8	31	Garrett Gerloff	Yamaha	1'38.074	1.154
9	66	Tom Sykes	BMW	1'38.170	1.250
10	21	Michael Ruben Rinaldi	Ducati	1'38.246	1.326
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Estoril WSBK - FP2 results

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	54	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Yamaha	1'37.284
2	45	Scott Redding	Ducati	1'37.334	0.050
3	21	Michael Ruben Rinaldi	Ducati	1'37.815	0.531
4	31	Garrett Gerloff	Yamaha	1'37.826	0.542
5	1	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki	1'37.831	0.547
6	22	Alex Lowes	Kawasaki	1'37.836	0.552
7	66	Tom Sykes	BMW	1'38.039	0.755
8	50	Eugene Laverty	BMW	1'38.123	0.839
9	94	Jonas Folger	BMW	1'38.140	0.856
10	55	Andrea Locatelli	Yamaha	1'38.254	0.970
View full results