Bautista leads Rea in Argentina FP1

Full WorldSBK Argentina FP1 results

Alvaro Bautista has made an early charge for the top of the times for Aruba.it Racing Ducati at Circuito San Juan Villicum as the majority of riders opted to wait for the track to be cleaned up.

World Superbike riders have been greeted by a dusty and slippery circuit in Argentina and duly opted for limited running in FP1 with track conditions expected to improve across the race weekend.

But with Bautista making his debut at the Argentinean track, the factory Ducati rider completed the second-most laps of any World Superbike rider and topped the times with a 1m 45.191s

That gave the ex-MotoGP rider a 0.865s gap over newly-crowned five-time World Superbike champion Jonathan Rea, who claimed a hat-trick of wins when the San Juan Villicum track made its WorldSBK debut 12 months ago for Kawasaki, with Michael Ruben Rinaldi slotting into third place for Barni Ducati.

Yamaha-bound Toprak Razgatlioglu claimed fourth place in FP1 for Puccetti Kawasaki ahead of Jordi Torres on the Pedercini Kawasaki, having completed the most laps of any rider with 21 to his name in the morning session, with Alex Lowes in sixth place for Pata Yamaha.

That saw the Kawasaki-bound rider ahead of team-mate Michael van der Mark with Loris Baz in eighth place for Ten Kate Racing Yamaha.

With Sandro Cortese in ninth for GRT Yamaha, he edged team-mate Marco Melandri with KRT’s Leon Haslam in 11^th on his debut at the track.

Ryuichi Kiyonari surged to 12^th place on the factory Honda ahead of Ducati’s Chaz Davies and BMW’s Tom Sykes.

Local star Leandro Mercado made a measured start to his home race weekend in 15^th place for Orelac Racing Kawasaki as Marcus Reiterberger (BMW), Alessandro Delbianco (Honda), Leon Camier (Honda) and Eugene Laverty (Team Goeleven Ducati) completed the FP1 times.