Practice report
World Superbike Assen
Assen WSBK: Sykes fastest on Friday, Bautista sixth
BMW rider Tom Sykes set the pace on Friday practice for this weekend's Assen World Superbike round, heading up a top five split by only 0.031 seconds.
David Gruz
Edited: Apr 12, 2019, 2:23 PM
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Sykes beat former Kawasaki teammate Jonathan Rea by three thousandths of a second with a time of 1m35.414s, which he set after the chequered flag fell in the afternoon session.
Rea was the pace-setter for most of Friday as he led from his first representative lap until the finish in FP1, and was trading the lead with teammate Leon Haslam in FP2.
Haslam ended up just 0.01s slower than Rea in third as the second BMW of Markus Reiterberger and local hero Michael Van der Mark (Yamaha) ended up a close fourth and fifth respectively.
Points leader Alvaro Bautista, whose Ducati has had its rev limit cut by 250rpm for this weekend following the Spaniard's dominant start to the year, was sixth-fastest, but was only 0.133s off the pace.
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Puccetti Kawasaki's Toprak Razgatlioglu was narrowly beaten by Bautista in seventh, followed by Sandro Cortese (GRT Yamaha).
The top 10 was completed by Chaz Davies (Ducati) and Alex Lowes (Yamaha), the latter having a crash at Turn 9 in FP1.
Honda, which has only had one top 10 finish in the first three rounds of the season, had its rev limit increased by 500rpm, but that didn't yield any significant improvement as Leon Camier was a lowly 13th.
Hector Barbera, standing in for the injured Leandro Mercado at Orelac Kawasaki after his Supersport bike was stolen last week, kicked off his WSBK career in 16th place.
Combined practice times
Cla # Rider Bike Laps Time Gap 1 66 
Tom Sykes BMW 18 1'35.414 2 1 Jonathan Rea Kawasaki 20 1'35.417 0.003 3 91 Leon Haslam Kawasaki 21 1'35.427 0.013 4 28 
Markus Reiterberger BMW 19 1'35.442 0.028 5 60 
Michael van der Mark Yamaha 20 1'35.445 0.031 6 19 
Alvaro Bautista Ducati 16 1'35.547 0.133 7 54 
Toprak Razgatlioglu Kawasaki 19 1'35.554 0.140 8 11 Sandro Cortese Yamaha 16 1'35.703 0.289 9 7 Chaz Davies Ducati 16 1'35.813 0.399 10 22 Alex Lowes Yamaha 19 1'36.183 0.769 11 50 
Eugene Laverty Ducati 20 1'36.197 0.783 12 81 Jordi Torres Kawasaki 23 1'36.235 0.821 13 2 Leon Camier Honda 19 1'36.457 1.043 14 33 
Marco Melandri Yamaha 17 1'36.765 1.351 15 23 
Ryuichi Kiyonari Honda 21 1'37.262 1.848 16 80 Hector Barbera Kawasaki 21 1'37.395 1.981 17 21 Michael Ruben Rinaldi Ducati 19 1'37.405 1.991 18 52 Alessandro Delbianco Honda 18 1'37.901 2.487
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