The fifth round of the Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship was officially kickstarted by Alex Dumas on Friday, as the former champion topped FP1 in wet conditions at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.
The morning rain had stopped shortly before FP1 began, leaving a very wet but drying track for the GP Bikes Pro Superbike class as times ramped up gradually throughout the session.
That allowed a handful of different riders to lead the timesheets at various points, with Trevor Daley the initial leader before a red flag stoppage. Ben Young would promptly take over the top spot when action resumed, but not for long as he and title rival Sam Guerin traded best laps across the middle stint.
Championship leader Young would move past Guerin for a final time with 15 minutes to go, posting a time of 1:34.549 as Guerin decided to park his EFC Group BMW for the remainder of the session.
It looked like Young’s time would hold up as a number of riders entered the pits with ten minutes to go, but Dumas would dislodge the Van Dolder’s Home Team BMW machine from the top spot as he found a time of 1:33.901 with seven minutes remaining.
Both Dumas and Young would bow out of the final five minutes, sealing the top spot for the Economy Lube Ducati squad ahead of qualifying Friday afternoon.
His lead wasn’t entirely comfortable in the final moments, though, as Jordan Szoke put in one final stint to leapfrog Young and put his CKM Kawasaki into second, just 0.507 seconds behind Dumas out front.
Tomas Casas would end the morning fourth-fastest in his return to the series, wasting no time getting back up to speed in his season debut aboard the Yamaha Motors Canada machine.
Rounding out the top five was Daley, who ran inside the top-four for most of the session before a late crash ruled out any improvements. The OneSpeed Suzuki rider was thankfully uninjured, leaving his hopes of a front row start or potential pole position still intact ahead of Q1 this afternoon.
The feature class will hope conditions improve before the first portion of qualifying gets underway at roughly 2:45 pm ET, with the top-ten BS Battery Q2 shootout set to run immediately afterwards at roughly 3:15 pm ET.
Full results from the morning practice can be found on the series’ official website.