Bautista tops Jerez FP3, four manufacturers inside top four

Jerez WorldSBK - Free Practice Results 3

Alvaro Bautista continued to stamp his mark on proceedings on home soil in Jerez ahead of qualifying for round six of the 2019 World Superbike Championship.

In perfect sunny conditions, Bautista wound up his Aruba.it Ducati towards a session-topping 1m 39.150secs, taking three tenths of his best lap from Friday and retaining a comfortable two tenth margin over the opposition.

Championship rival Jonathan Rea led that challenge this time, the Ulsterman making a promising step forward in terms of lap time to rise to second position on the Kawasaki ZX-10RR

Second overnight, Michael van der Mark’s failure to improve this morning allowed his Pata Yamaha team-mate Alex Lowes fly the ‘R1 flag’ in third position, a tenth off Rea, while Tom Sykes made it four manufacturers inside the top four with impressive gains on the factory BMW.

With half-a-second covering the top five down to van der Mark, while Chaz Davies catapulted from 11th to sixth, he remains almost a second slower than Bautista.

Elsewhere, Loris Baz returned to track on his rebuilt Ten Kate SBK Yamaha after his heavily-damaging crash in FP2, ending the session 15th.