Mixed weather greeted the Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team on Friday at the opening round of the 2018 FIM Superbike World Championship and the team were forced to deal with mixed fortunes throughout the day. Michael van der Mark impressed during the official test earlier in the week at Phillip Island and kept up this form to finish Friday in seventh on the combined timesheets with a 1:31.114, 0.707s off the quickest rider. His teammate Alex Lowes showed superb fortitude to bounce back after a crash in FP2, which forced him to miss the entire session, making up for lost time in FP3 to set a 1:31.516 and end the day in tenth overall, with both riders making it through to SP2 on Saturday.