Jonathan Rea sixth after day one at Phillip Island as World Superbike rookie Scott Redding leads way

Redding, who won the British Superbike title in 2019 at his first attempt for Paul Bird’s team, was 0.4s ahead of Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha) in the drier FP2 session after FP1 was hit by rain. The British rider was also quickest in the damp by over one second from Loris Baz on the Ten Kate Yamaha.

Michael van der Mark was third fastest overall on his Pata Yamaha, while Leon Haslam impressed on the new factory Honda as he slotted into fourth, half-a-second back on Redding.

Frenchman Baz and reigning five-time champion Rea were next as the top six were covered by only 0.542s.

Rea, who is chasing his first win at Phillip Island since he did the double in 2017, said: “The bike set-up was quite similar to the recent test but I did not feel as good today and we did not make too many changes.

“We concentrated on testing both the new option tyre that Pirelli brought and the standard tyre we had at the tests. Both have different feelings, some positive some negative. So we need to look a bit deeper at why the feeling was not so good and there is clearly a lack of grip compared to the tests,” Rea added.

“Tomorrow morning, depending on the grip level, hopefully there will be a lot more rubber down from the support classes, and the track will be a little bit different. It is always a difficult one when you have a lot of rain. But I feel we are not so far away.”

Eugene Laverty was 14th on the factory BMW, with team-mate Tom Sykes in seventh, one place ahead of last year’s title runner-up Alvaro Bautista (Team HRC).

Friday’s combined results from FP1 and FP2:

1. Scott Redding (ARUBA.IT Racing – Ducati) 1’30.436

2. Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Official Team) +0.418

3.Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Official Team) +0.469

4. Leon Haslam (Team HRC) +0.500

5. Loris Baz (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha) +0.537

6. Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) +0.542