Dumas steals top spot in FP1 at Shannonville

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Category: CSBK News

Published on Friday, August 30, 2024 12:04 EDT

Written by Cam Bickle

A last-minute time attack changed the early momentum at the Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship finale on Friday, as Alex Dumas paced FP1 for the fourth round in a row at Shannonville Motorsport Park.

Dumas has topped every FP1 session since returning to the GP Bikes Pro Superbike class in round three, proving to be a fast starter in each weekend aboard his Economy Lube Ducati, but he faced a bigger uphill battle than usual after rival Ben Young torched the field in unofficial running on Thursday.

Young clocked in at a high 1:44 lap time in Thursday’s test day while Dumas was the only other rider to break into the 1:45’s, a near-one-second margin that made Young the overwhelming favourite heading into the first official session on Friday morning.

It looked like that trend was going to continue in FP1 as Young led for almost the entire 40-minute period, breaking into the 1:44’s right away and gradually working his way down to a best time of 1:44.175.

Dumas would then make a few adjustments to his V4 Panigale before setting out for one final push in the final moments, and it proved to be a positive step as he jumped to the top of the timesheets in the last minute with a time of 1:43.987.

That incredible early pace is nearly a quarter-second faster than Dumas’ FP1-leading time from a year ago, and only 0.4 seconds away from his pole position benchmark despite cloudy and cooler conditions on Friday morning.

While Young was unable to match Dumas’ time in the final stint, the Van Dolder’s Home Team BMW rider is still in good shape to potentially clinch his fourth career Canada Cup on Friday, as he only needs to out-qualify Sam Guerin to defend the #1 plate.

Guerin would follow Young in the middle portion of the session and managed to place himself third with the tow, putting his EFC Group BMW only 0.3 seconds off the championship leader and a half-second behind Dumas at the front.

The lead trio would exit with a comfortable margin to the rest of the field, with 14-time champion Jordan Szoke taking fourth despite trailing Dumas by 1.6 seconds aboard his CKM Kawasaki.

Local star Eli Daccache was fifth-fastest for Milwaukee Yamaha, finding himself in an equally lonely spot as he wound up 0.6 seconds behind Szoke and nearly a full second ahead of Sebastien Tremblay in sixth.

The gaps would shrink dramatically from there, however, as Tremblay paced a tight-knit group of four riders aboard his Sport Bike championship-winning Turcotte Performance Suzuki GSX-R750.

Trevor Daley would finish just 0.056 seconds behind him for OneSpeed Suzuki, fighting through a wrist injury for majority of the session before making matters worse with a late crash, though Daley thankfully walked away from the turn four incident.

Tomas Casas would wind up eighth on the timesheets for Yamaha Motors Canada, only 0.018 seconds clear of David MacKay and the ODH Snow City Cycle Honda team, while top rookie Connor Campbell completed the top ten aboard his B&T MacFarlane/Kubota Kawasaki.

The feature class field will now prepare for Q1 at Shannonville, currently scheduled for 2:45 pm ET, before the top ten advance immediately into the BS Battery Q2 session at roughly 3:15 pm ET.

More information can be found on the series’ official website.