Great start of the Assen Round for Kawasaki. Jonathan Rea usually wins on the Dutch circuit, but in FP2 also his teammate Tom Sykes was very fast and the gap between Sykes and Rea amounts to just 78 milliseconds. Ducati, instead, is struggling and just a great final lap by Marco Melandri (4th) shortened the gap till 341 milliseconds. Much worse Chaz Davies, who ranked 10th with 667 milliseconds off the championship leader.
YAMAHA FOLLOWING KRT – The main opponent of Kawasaki at Assen is not Ducati, but Yamaha, especiallty thanks to a very competitiveMichael van der Mark. In FP2 the 2014 World Supersport Champion didn’t improve his laptime, but he anyway ranked third. But we have to consider that this year Kawasaki goes slower compared to 2017 (Rea had set the race lap record at 1’34″880), but if the new regulation has made Kawasaki slower, it is also true that the other manufacturers haven’t been helped that much. Going back to the results, MV Agusta’s Jordi Torres ranked fifth, just behind Marco Melandri and in front of Lorenzo Savadori. Little steps forward also for BMW, in eighth place with Loris Baz, expected to return in the front after a difficult start of the season. Problems for Honda: Jake Gagne had a huge crash and was taken to Medical Centre. The third and last session will definitely determine the 10 riders who go straight to Superpole 2 and it will start at 16:05 local time.
