A familiar pecking order emerged after Free Practice Two for the FIM Supersport World Championship in Thailand. The lead duo in the series after the Australian Round, Lucas Mahias (GRT Yamaha Official WorldSSP Team) and Randy Krummenacher (BARDAHL Evan Bros. WorldSSP Team), were comfortably fastest in FP1 but saw their advantage slashed in the second session.
Federico Caricasulo (GRT Yamaha Official WorldSSP Team) in particular made a significant gain during the day, closing over half a second on Mahias’ 1:37.469 time and to within three tenths of a second of top spot. But the Italian’s new fastest time only enabled him to remain in third position, just ahead of Jules Cluzel who completed a lead quartet of Yamaha runners.
Thai Wild Card riders Thitipong Warokorn (CORE Kawasaki Thailand Racing Team) and Ratthapong Wilairot (Yamaha Thailand Racing Team) finished just over a tenth of a second from one another, disputing the last of the top ten positions.
In what was a close session throughout, Lucas Mahias was one of only two among the top ten riders who failed to improve his pace in FP2. The other was Luke Stapleford (Profile Racing), who suffered a turn five crash less than ten minutes into the session and dropped from fifth to ninth overall.
The fastest seven ahead of him were eventually separated by less than half a second in the first two sessions combined, and with third place in particular having been closely contested right to the flag in Australia, indications are for a similarly close-fought race weekend in Thailand.
With Superpole on the agenda for Saturday, WorldSSP will prepare for Superpole to commence at 14.30LT.
Fonte: WorldSBK.com.