Polesitter Carlos Checa has continued to set the pace on his factory Ducati in the final World Superbike warm-up session at Phillip Island ahead of this afternoon’s season-opening 22-lap races.
Checa easily topped the timesheets in the short 15-minute session, nearly a second ahead of Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes, followed by Aprilia’s Michel Fabrizio and Suzuki’s Leon Camier.
All the other big guns such as Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli, BMW duo Chaz Davies and Leon Haslam and Honda team-mates Leon Haslam and Jonathan Rea got through the session unscathed, and now all is in readiness for the opening 22-lap race at 12:00pm.
Australians Glenn Allerton (BMW) and Jamie Stauffer (Honda) also completed their shakedowns with a minimum of fuss, as they prepare to the give the international riders a real hurry-up in today’s races.
In the World Supersport warm-up, world champion Kenan Sofouglu (Kawasaki) was fastest, ahead of the ride who had previously dominated every session this weekend, Yamaha rider Sam Lowes.
But the man on a mission was Australia’s 20-yaer-old Josh Hook (Honda), who went half-a-second-second faster than his best qualifying lap to really et himself up for a crack at a top 10 finish in this afternoon’s race at 1:30pm.