Scott Redding makes it three from three as he strives for Estoril glory

Scott Redding made it three from three in free practice for the 2020 WorldSBK Championship finale at Estoril as he set himself up for a run at pole position in what will be the final Superpole of the season in Portugal.

Having dominated proceedings on Friday, Redding was again formidable on Saturday morning by once again turning in the fastest time of the weekend, stopping the clock with a 1m 36.770secs lap.

That placed him just over a tenth quicker than Toprak Razgatlioglu on the Yamaha, whie champion-elect Jonathan Rea got the gap down to his sole remaining title rival out front to two tenths of a second as he inches closer to his sixth crown.

The Kawasaki rider can seal the seemingly inevitable this afternoon by securing the minimum three points (13th place) he needs to put it out of Redding’s reach, regardless of where his countryman finishes. However, Rea will also be gunning for his 100th WorldSBK win this weekend, a feat that has never been achieved with the next highest tally of 59 courtesy of Carl Fogarty.

Yamaha continued to look strong with Michael van der Mark and Garrett Gerloff establishing themselves inside the top five in fourth and fifth, with outgoing Ducati rider Chaz Davies hoping for a good end to the year in sixth quickest.

Wild-card Jonas Folger continued to make teams sit up and take notice with his seventh best lap on the privateer Yamaha, while Alex Lowes was eighth. Tom Sykes and Leon Haslam led the BMW and Honda challenges in ninth and tenth.

The short FP3 session was largely without incident, though Leandro Mercado did suffer a fall from his Motocorsa Ducati.