Ducati News Today

Factory withdrawal or no, Ducati still featured at the top of the time charts at the end of the first day of official testing for the World Superbike Championship yesterday in Portimao, Portgual. Well known fast lap specialist, Jacob Smrz took the honors with Althea Ducati’s, Carlos Checa in 5th.

Smrz used his ex-factory Liberty Ducati to good effect setting a time just 2/10ths faster than early leader Jonathan Rea on his Castrol Honda. Eugene Laverty showed the promise that is expected from him with 3rd best time ahead of Tom Sykes reveling in the performance of the brand new Kawasaki in 4th. Finally it would appear he has a foil equal to his talent.

Carlos Checa was 4th, still only 3/10ths behind the leader, his new livery looking very much the factory Ducati in all but name. Smrz’s teammate, the popular Frenchman Sylvain Guintoli was 8th. MotoGP reject Marco Melandri was deeply unimpressive in 15th on the factory Yamaha although he admittedly had no previous knowledge of the circuit (that wouldn’t have stopped Ben Spies!).

Testing continues tomorrow.

Source: World SBK.com, Checa photo from his Twitter feed

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