Portimão pace: Oncü and Lowes

Can Öncü secured the fifth pole of his WorldSSP career — his first pole of the season — at Portimão on Friday. (worldsbk.com)) A late red flag came after Josh Whatley’s bike emitted smoke and fluid on the descent into Turn 1, compressing the session’s final five minutes and allowing only a handful of riders a clear opportunity to improve their times. (worldsbk.com)) Valentin Debise pipped the rest to the front row’s inner slot while Lucas Mahias capitalised on the restart to claim the remaining front-row position; Albert Arenas, Philipp Oettl and Jaume Masia make up the second row. (motomatters.com)) Sam Lowes topped both Friday WorldSBK sessions at Portimão and was the only rider to drop into the 1m39s bracket, finishing about 0.247 seconds clear of championship leader Nicolo Bulega after passing a Thursday medical wrist check. (worldsbk.com)) Ducati machines filled the chasing positions behind Lowes in FP2, with Nicolo Bulega and Yari Montella among the quickest — Montella had earlier lost time to a technical problem in FP1 and also suffered a crash at Turn 5 in FP2. (motograndprix.motorionline.com)) FP2 also saw Somkiat Chantra suffer a high‑speed fall at Turn 15 from which he was able to walk away, while Miguel Oliveira ended the day as the fastest BMW runner after running closely with teammate Danilo Petrucci. (worldsbk.com))