Image: Russell Colvin.

Frenchman Sylvain Guintoli was fastest in the second World Superbike practice at Phillip Island this afternoon, leading the way into tomorrow’s Superpole session in Australia.

The only man to set a lap within a 1m30s bracket all day and consequently the fastest on Friday, the 2014 champion was almost four-tenths clear of next man on the timesheets, Honda rider Michael Van Der Mark.

With much of the session dedicated to longer runs, the expected dash for the line in the last stage of the session saw a lot of track action.

Reigning champion Jonathan Rea did a long and consistent run as he dueled with Van Der Mark for the top spot in both long run and one lap pace, before Guintoli dropped his time significantly with a lap that proved unbeatable by the end of the session.

The rhythm of the reigning champion, however, looks set to be difficult to beat. Van Der Mark, who lead laps last year in Phillip Island, also looked impressive over a longer run.

The top 10 times were very competitive, with Sykes, Hayden, Giugliano and Davies all looking solid around the Australian track. Lorenzo Savadori put in a great lap to join them in the top 10 and the fastest BMW from the morning session, Markus Reiterberger, maintained his title as just that. By virtue of the combined timesheet, the German pips Alex Lowes to a final entry into Tissot-Superpole 2.

Leon Camier remained the fastest Italian bike on track on his MV Agusta, with his pace of the morning proving no fluke. Another surprise of the day was Guintoli’s teammate Lowes, who was unable to replicate the pace of his teammate R1.

After making a mistake near the end of the session, automatic entry to Superpole 2 rested on a final push and the British rider missed out. He does however still have chance to fight for the top 10 grid positions by going through Tissot-Superpole 2.

Of the Australian locals, DesmoSport Ducati wildcard Mike Jones was 14th with a 1m32.476s, with Milwaukee BMW’s Josh Brookes 18th and 1.839s off the pace of Guintoli.

WorldSBK will be back on track tomorrow morning once more to see how the pack will shuffle overnight, ahead of race one in the afternoon.

The second World Supersport session of the weekend was topped by Randy Krummenacher (Kawasaki) at 1m33.878s, over Lorenzo Zanetti (MV Agusta) and PJ Jacobsen (Honda).

Anthony West (Yamaha) was top Aussie in position six at 1m34.672s, joined by Glenn Scott (Honda) in 17th, Aiden Wagner (MV Agusta) 19th, Mitch Levy (Yamaha) 21st, Alex Phillis (Honda) 23rd, Kane Burns (Suzuki) 24th and Lachlan Epis (Kawasaki) 26th.

Click here for detailed results