Young tops FP2 ahead of race one at CTMP

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Published on Saturday, August 13, 2022 11:22 EDT

Pole-sitter Ben Young continued to set the bar at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park on Saturday, leading the FP2 morning session ahead of race one of the Canadian Superbike Championship tripleheader.

Young sat atop the timesheets for almost the entire 25-minute session, but not with a lot of room to spare, pacing championship rival Alex Dumas by just under two-tenths of a second for majority of the practice period. The Van Dolder’s Home Team BMW rider would go marginally faster in the end, though, lifting himself 0.225 seconds clear of the reigning champion as they turn their attention to race one this afternoon.

Dumas will need a bit of good fortune if he hopes to keep his #1 plate for 2023, with Young taking a 32-point lead into the season finale weekend, though the Liqui Moly/Fast School Suzuki man remains right on pace with Young as he has been all weekend thus far.

The two names that will line up alongside them on the front row this afternoon had far less enjoyable outings in FP2, as Sebastien Tremblay wound up eighth-fastest while Trevor Daley fought through mechanical issues to go fifth-fastest.

Daley was forced to pull in early to repair a damaged rear shock system, which sidelined him for most of the session as he got only a handful of laps in. The OneSpeed Suzuki team seemingly fixed the issue as Daley went back out on track in the final five minutes, though he was unable to improve his time heading into race one.

Taking their place in FP2 was Steven Nickerson, who came out on top of a six-rider group that was separated by just a quarter-second. The DeWildt Powersports Honda rider had front-row pace in Q1 yesterday before winding up seventh in Q2, but he appears to have found his podium pace once again entering the weekend racing.

Notably fourth-fastest in the morning session was veteran Chris Murray-Audain, who makes his season debut aboard a privateer BMW. Murray-Audain has become known as a CTMP expert over the years, and could make up for a quiet qualifying as he ups his pace ahead of race one on Saturday afternoon. 

Row two qualifiers Tomas Casas and Sam Guerin wound up sixth and seventh, respectively, through the FP2 session, with Casas matching his pace from Friday while Guerin slipped slightly backwards from his grid position in fifth. 

Rennie Scaysbrook continued to find more pace aboard his factory-backed Aprilia as he learns an unfamiliar CTMP track, with the Australian completing the session in tenth, though Kenny Riedmann’s struggles continued as he only went 15th fastest in limited track time aboard his Van Dolder’s Home Team BMW.

The full results from the morning session can be found on the series’ official website ahead of race one, scheduled for 3 pm ET at CTMP.