Aprilia will have not one, but two bikes on the front row, for the opening World Superbike race at Phillip Island tomorrow. Frenchman Sylvain Guintoli took the spoils this afternoon, to land himself the number one spot on the grid, followed by Ducati’s Davide Giugliano and fellow Roman, Aprilia’s Marco Melandri completing row one.
Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes was looking on course to go pole, as he was the quickest rider in the first two sectors, but he crashed on turn 10, meaning he will start from the third row. The current champ fell into the gravel with only a few minutes remaining of Superpole two, and was not able to progress on his best time of 1’30.835. But on the bright side he was uninjured.
With ten minutes remaining Ducati’s Davide Giugliano eased his way into a provisional pole position, setting the fastest lap of 1’30.254. Melandri was one tenth of a second behind the Ducati, but it was enough to place him on a potential front row.
But Melandri’s French team-mate Guintoli decided that he wanted to challenge for the number one spot on the grid, and put in a 1’30.038, smashing the best lap record clocked last year by Carlos Checa, by two tenths of a second, propelling his way to the top of the timesheets and straight into pole position.
Voltcom Suzuki’s Eugene Laverty put away some solid, and consistently fast lap times during qualifying, but could not find the extra one five-hundredths of a second to push Melandri off the front row. But the Irishman will be joined on row two, by rookie team-mate Alex Lowes. The reigning MCE British Superbike champ was the fastest during the free practice outings but he is nursing an ankle injury after a crash in FP3, and will start from fifth, after he put away a 1’30.425.
Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea completes row two, with a 1’30.660 lap, which places him firmly inside the top ten. Kawasaki’s Loris Baz starts one place ahead of colleague, Sykes, with the other Pata Honda bike of Leon Haslam completing the third row line up. The Smalley rider had to climb into Superpole two from the earlier session, but his 1’31.138 time was enough to put him ninth on the grid. Althea Racing’s Niccolo Canepa is the leading EVO machine, and rounds off the top ten.
Ducati’s Chaz Davies will not too happy to be starting from eleventh for the two races tomorrow. The Welshman was a second off the pace of team-mate Giugliano, and one one-hundredths of a second behind the EVO machine of Canepa.
In Superpole one Haslam was the fastest in the fifteen minute session, with a 1’30.970 lap, which safely secured his place in Superpole two. Former MotoGP contender Toni Elias was never far off the pace of the Brit, with six minutes remaining of the first qualifying session, on his Red Devils Roma machine.
But the Italian was soon outpaced by the EVO Kawasaki of David Salom. The Spaniard was in third and look like he would miss out on progressing through to Superpole two, but he clocked a 1’31.652, going nearly a second quicker than Elias, meaning the former Moto2 rider missed out on trying to fight for a potential pole position. His best lap of 1’32.107, means the Aprilia rider will start from the sixth row of the grid tomorrow.
