Karl Harris was once again on top form as he surged to the fastest time of the day in the second Bennetts British Superbike free practice session at
Oulton Park.
Having gone fastest in the morning session, Harris hit the top spot with just under ten minutes remaining with a lap of 1min 36.894secs, before lowering his best marker by another tenth soon afterwards.
Beating his best lap from the morning, Harris was just over a tenth faster than Cal Crutchlow, the HM Plant Honda rider leading for much of the session before being usurped by the Rob Mac Racing Yamaha rider late on.
Shane Byrne was there or thereabouts in third as he steadily worked his way up the order, while Leon Haslam – another rider to spend time at the top over the course of the 50 minutes – had to settle for fourth best.
Leon Camier jumped up to fifth in the closing stages at the expense of Tom Sykes, the Rizla Suzuki rider himself ahead of James Ellison and Michael Rutter.
Atsushi Watanabe was a relatively encouraging ninth best, the Japanese rider proving one of the biggest improvers as he bettered his own lap time from the morning by more than three seconds. Simon Andrews rounded out the top ten.
With most of the quick lap times set in the latter stages of the session, it was the turn of lesser fancied riders to battle it out at the head of the order early on. Indeed, only three lap times were set in the first twenty minutes of the session as the riders waited for the remnants of a brief shower to dry.
As such, the likes of David Johnson, Chris Burns and Dean Ellison troubled the top spot for some time before being shuffled down the order.
