The cold and cloudy conditions didn’t faze Ben Young on Sunday morning, as he comfortably led a reduced FP3 session at round two of the Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship in Atlantic Motorsport Park.
While temperatures are expected to increase throughout the day, overnight rain and heavy overcast made for a less-than-ideal morning practice, with a number of riders choosing not to participate in the final 20-minute warm up.
The early portion of the session was going entirely the way of Kawasaki, with Supersport frontrunner Alex Michel atop the leaderboard with Jordan Szoke, Connor Campbell, and Mackenzie Weil in tow.
Young would spoil the party in the second half of FP3, though, navigating a mostly dry track to drop over two seconds from the provisional best time.
The Van Dolder’s Home Team Honda rider would gradually improve across his seven laps to post a best time of 1:13.027, almost a full second clear of Sebastien Tremblay in second.
Young is celebrating his 32nd birthday on Sunday and will hope to do so from the top of the podium, having settled for second to Sam Guerin in race one as the four-time champion looks for his first victory as a Honda rider.
Tremblay would follow Young both on-track and in the timesheets, putting his Supersport-spec S.T. Motosport Suzuki almost two seconds clear of the next rider.
The reigning Supersport champion was taken out of the lead battle in his race on Saturday, salvaging ninth, but looked to be back on form entering a crucial race two of his own this afternoon in the middleweight class.
Campbell would wind up the fastest of the group of Kawasaki’s, completing the most laps of the session (12) to put his B&T MacFarlane ZX-10RR Ninja third-fastest and almost two seconds clear of teammate Szoke.
Szoke missed the podium for the first time this season after a back-and-forth battle with former teammate Torin Collins on Saturday, with the Canadian Kawasaki Motors star looking to avenge his result with a victory on Sunday.
Michel would round out the top-five aboard his Supersport-spec SpeedFactory67 Kawasaki, having turned in an excellent second-place finish in the first race of the middleweight class as he eyes a first career pro victory this afternoon.
Amongst the riders to skip the chilly morning practice were race one winner Guerin and championship leader Alex Dumas, a sign the BMW pair are content with their bike setups as conditions are expected to improve by race time on Sunday.
The last feature race of the weekend is set to get underway at roughly 3 pm AT, with the full slate kicking off at 11:30 am at Atlantic Motorsport Park, just 45 minutes north of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Full results can be found here.
