Kawasaki’s Loris Baz clinched his maiden World Superbike pole at Assen this afternoon. The young French rider dominated Superpole two and smashed the outright lap record that was set by Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea back in 2010, after his super fast 1’34.357 lap. Baz will be joined on the front row by Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli and his Kawasaki team-mate, Tom Sykes.
In first five minutes of the final qualifying outing Baz was sat in a provisional pole spot after a 1’35.165, closely followed by Sykes. But his fellow compatriot, Guintoli was the first rider to lap inside the 1’34 bracket – with eight minutes left to the session – and only one-two thousandths of a second off the best lap clocked by Rea four years ago.
But Baz was not going to let Guintoli get the better of him and pulverised Rea’s best lap record, going six tenths of a second faster to go back to the top of the timing screens after ten minutes.
With four minutes remaining the white flags started to appear, as spots of rain started to fall on the TT circuit, and most of the riders retreated to their garage, and Superpole came to an abrupt end. Heading row two is Aprilia’s Marco Melandri, Rea and Ducati’s Davide Giugliano.
Althea Racing’s Niccolo Canepa remained the leading Evo machine and after a 1’35.500 and will start on row three, and is joined by the Voltcom Suzuki duo of Eugene Laverty and Alex Lowes. Both riders failed to make an impact on the top five, and had to settle for eighth and ninth on the starting grid tomorrow.
Row four has a distinctively British feel with Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam and Ducati’s Chaz Davies completing the row, with Haslam going only one-four thousandths faster than the Welshman. The row is headed by Red Devils Roma rider Toni Elias.
In Superpole one only two riders could progress through to Superpole two – and this afternoon they were Davies and Melandri. At first it was Davies who was the quickest followed by BMW Italia’s Leon Camier, and Melandri.
The Welsh rider continued to improve on his pace throughout the fifteen minute session, and so did his former team-mate, Melandri. The diminutive Italian went from third to second fastest, demoting Camier to third. Melandri only completed a handful of laps but he had done enough after a 1’35.762 to comfortably place him into Superpole two – after only a handful of laps.
Davies was the fastest rider until Melandri went one tenth of a second quicker, knocking the Welshman back to down second on the timing screens, with two minutes remaining. But Davies was not giving up and with 30 seconds left soared to the top of the timesheets again with a 1’35.507.
Camier was close to going up to contest a place on the front row on his Evo spec bike – but he could not match the pace of the Ducati and Aprilia, and had to settle for third in Superpole one and will start from thirteenth on the grid for tomorrow’s races. Alstare’s Christian Iddon on his Bimota bike failed to make it out of the first Superpole and will start on row seven.
