WorldSBK Magny Cours FP1: Jonathan Rea leads drying session

September 3, 2021 EMR Writer

Jonathan Rea went quickest in FP1 at Magny Cours as the track dried up.

The free practice session in France started in wet conditions, however by the end we had a dry enough track for the riders to attempt to push the limits of their machines with five manufacturers finishing within the top 6, to nobodies surprise Jonathan Rea came out as the fastest rider ahead of a surprising Michael van der Mark in second place only 0.140 seconds back showing some decent pace in the early stages of the weekend.

For Kawasaki it was a confidence-boosting session with Alex Lowes just behind The Flying Dutchman in third place, the British rider is incredibly used to riding in tricky conditions knowing how temperamental the British weather can be, he led championship leader Toprak Razgatlioglu who was the session leader until a dash in the final few minutes saw many riders aiming to improve and better their time and place higher in the leaderboard, this would eventually relegate the Turkish rider to fourth place overall ahead of Scott Redding.

In recent races Scott Redding has been able to claw back over 30 points in the title chase sitting in a solid third place only 38 points behind Razgatlioglu and Rea who are tied, he proved to many in this session that he is willing to take risks and was the first rider to leave pitlane on slick tyres on the drying track and set a time worthy of P5 ahead of the HRC duo of Alvaro Bautista and Leon Haslam in P6 and P7 respectively.

Chaz Davies finished in P8, the Welshman surrounded in rumours of a potential Honda switch for 2022 alongside Tom Sykes who finished the session in P10 with Garrett Gerloff sandwiched between them.

Some riders struggled throughout the session including newly re-hired Michael Ruben Rinaldi down in P16.

Full results –