Superpole three
Marco Melandri 1'57.634
Max Biaggi 1'57.790
Leon Camier 1'58.279
Works Yamaha's Marco Melandri has grabbed his first ever World Superbike podium at Motorland Aragon this afternoon, setting the fastest lap of the weekend so far which was enough to edge out the Alitalia Aprilia pairing of Max Biaggi and Leon Camier.
Runaway series leader Carlos Checa is on the outside of the front row, two-tenths slower than Camier while the second Yamaha of Eugene Laverty was bumped to sixth by Tom Sykes on his final lap even after being held up by a dawdling Biaggi. Joan Lascorz and Ayrton Badovini round out the top eight.
Superple two
Max Biaggi 1'57.841
Carlos Checa 1'58.043
Eugene Laverty 1'58.094
In a session of little drama, Biaggi used a qualifier to ensure he made it through to the last session with Checa and Laverty virtually sharing a laptime to make the top three.
Haga and Camier scrapped it out in ninth and eighth for the final place in the third session with the Samurai of Slide going seventh on his last lap and Camier going fifth which pushed out Sylvain Guintoli.
Tom Sykes was nearly eliminated from the final cut but grabbed fifth from Camier late on which pushed his team-mate Joan Lascorz right to the edge. Haga was then eliminated by a lap from Badovini. Alstare Suzuki's Michel Fabrizio was sitting on his garage while people around him went faster and he didn't make it.
ELIMINATED
Noriyuki Haga
Sylvain Guintoli
Michel Fabrizio
Mark Aitchison
Superpole one
Eugene Laverty 1'58.621
Carlos Checa 1'58.714
Leon Camier 1'58.738
Laverty left it until the last lap to pull himself from the drop zone to fastest while Checa and Camier only used one flying lap to set their times and looked comfortable with it, the Briton finding his way into the 1'58s first and his team-mate Biaggi following suit before Checa took top spot at that point.
Guintoli rescued himself from the drop with his last lap as did Sykes and Fabrizio while Badovini showed his cards early with a 1'58.897. Yesterday's fastest man Melandri was on the bubble of being knocked out but played it cool and didn't return to the track with a qualifying tyre like his team-mate.
It was curtains for the BMW pair of Leon Haslam and Troy Corser, though, and there will be more scratching of heads in that garage this evening, as there will be in Jakub Smrz' pit.
ELIMINATED
Jakub Smrz
Leon Haslam
Maxine Berger
Troy Corser
