Phillip Island WSBK: Redding quickest in practice for Ducati

With the first practice taking place on a damp Phillip Island circuit, all of the day’s quickest times were set in the dry second session.

Kawasaki’s Alex Lowes led the way when practice resumed in the afternoon, immediately moving to the top of the charts with a time of 1m31.336s.

Leon Haslam, who left Kawasaki to join the factory Honda team over the winter, then took over the top, breaking the 1m31s barrier with a 1m30.936s flyer.

A red flag was thrown soon after to recover debris from track, and although the session went back to green soon after, Haslam’s benchmark remained unbeaten until the final two minutes of practice.

Redding, making his WSBK debut for the factory Ducati team, set a blistering time of 1m30.436s, dethroning Haslam by half a second.

Moments later, Razgatlioglu also managed to better Haslam’s chart-topping time, albeit finishing over four tenths down on Redding, before Michael van der Mark (Yamaha) relegated the Honda rider to fourth.

Loriz Baz finished fifth for the Ten Kate Yamaha team, while five-time champion Jonathan Rea’s late effort of 1m30.978s was only good enough for sixth.

Tom Sykes was the lead BMW rider in seventh, while Alvaro Bautista was next up in eighth on his debut weekend with Honda.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi was ninth astride the Go Eleven Ducati, while the top 10 was completed by Puccetti Kawasaki of Xaxi Fores.

Chaz Davies was only 13th quickest on the second of the two factory Ducatis, over a second slower than teammate Redding, who also topped the morning session in the wet.

The field was propped up by multiple Suzuka 8 Hours winner Takumi Takahashi, who is making his full-time WSBK debut with the MIE Althea Honda team.

FP2 results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	45	Scott Redding	Ducati	1'30.436
2	54	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Yamaha	1'30.854	0.418
3	60	Michael van der Mark	Yamaha	1'30.905	0.469
4	91	Leon Haslam	Honda	1'30.936	0.500
5	76	Loris Baz	Yamaha	1'30.973	0.537
6	1	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki	1'30.978	0.542
7	66	Tom Sykes	BMW	1'31.161	0.725
8	19	Alvaro Bautista	Honda	1'31.201	0.765
9	21	Michael Ruben Rinaldi	Ducati	1'31.213	0.777
10	12	Xavi Fores	Kawasaki	1'31.265	0.829
11	22	Alex Lowes	Kawasaki	1'31.336	0.900
12	11	Sandro Cortese	Kawasaki	1'31.397	0.961
13	7	Chaz Davies	Ducati	1'31.478	1.042
14	50	Eugene Laverty	BMW	1'31.747	1.311
15	31	Garrett Gerloff	Yamaha	1'31.898	1.462
16	64	Federico Caricasulo	Yamaha	1'32.008	1.572
17	77	Maximilian Scheib	Kawasaki	1'32.030	1.594
18	2	Leon Camier	Ducati	1'32.649	2.213
19	13	Takumi Takahashi	Honda	1'34.995	4.559
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