WorldSBK Magny-Cours, France - Free Practice Results (1)

Jonathan Rea topped the opening WorldSBK practice session at Magny-Cours ahead of Michael Van Der Mark and Alex Lowes. 

While a mostly dry weekend at Magny-Cours has been forecasted, riders chose to stay in pit lane early on as overnight rain dampened the track surface. 

Three of those riders included championship contenders Toprak Razgatlioglu, Rea and Scott Redding. 

Kohta Nozane was one of the first to venture out alongside Barni Ducati rider Tito Rabat. 

Short of running at the French circuit in recent seasons, Honda pairing Alvaro Bautista and Leon Haslam were others to test out the conditions. 

After setting the fastest lap of the four runners, Bautista returned to pit lane along with Nozane, while team-mate Haslam and Rabat continued on. 

It wasn’t until 20 minutes to go until that the action began to pick up courtesy of Andrea Locatelli. The Italian was soon followed by championship leader Razgatlioglu and Aruba.it Ducati duo Redding and Michael Rinaldi. 

With under ten minutes to go every rider was out on track and setting personal best lap times through to the checkered flag. 

Redding was the man at the top for most of it, before being bettered by Razgatlioglu, Lowes, Van Der Mark and Rea in the final minute.