The Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team kicked off Round 8 of the 2018 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship on Friday at Laguna Seca. Full of confidence following on from his victory in Race 2 at Brno, Alex Lowes set a 1:23.687 to end the day in seventh on the combined timesheets, 0.583s off the fastest rider, to automatically make it through to SP2 on Saturday. His teammate Michael van der Mark made a solid start, ending Friday in 11th overall with a 1:24.106 and he will battle it out in SP1.