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Istanbul WSBK: Sykes clinches pole position

Superpole three

Tom Sykes 1’54.872

Sylvain Guintoli 1’54.894

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Davide Giugliano 1’55.073

Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes was on fire in the final World Superbike Superpole session. Huddersfield’s finest clocked the fastest lap of the weekend with a 1’54.872, which secured his first pole position at the Istanbul Park circuit.

Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli left it till the chequered flag appeared to set his best lap of a 1’54.894. At first it seemed that the England based French rider was on course to topple Sykes from the number on spot on the grid, but he was two one-hundredths of a second slower. But his lap time did push Althea Racing’s Davide Giugliano down to third on the grid.

Guintoli’s team-mate Eugene Laverty could not emulate his fast race pace that he had in the second Superpole outing, and could not lap inside the 1’54 barrier. His quickest lap of 1’55.340 places him on the second row. The Irish lad is joined by Red Devils rider Toni Elias, who had a solid Superpole session, with Fixi Crescent Suzuki’s Jules Cluzel completing the row.

There is a distinctively British feel to row three, which includes Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam and GoldBet BMW’s Chaz Davies. The Welshman will start the main races tomorrow alongside his Italian colleague, Marco Melandri.

Both BMW rider’s left it till there was only three and a half minutes remaining to the session to make their way on to the track, meaning neither rider were able to complete many laps of the Turkish circuit.

Superpole two

Eugene Laverty 1’54.967

Davide Giugliano 1’55.413

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Tom Sykes 1’55.673

Laverty was the rider who clinched the provisional pole spot in the second Superpole outing, with a super quick lap of 1’54.967, and no other rider was able to out pace the Irish lad in that session.

Last lap dashes from Davies and Giugliano were not enough and their times could only place them fourth and second respectively, with the Italian going two tenths of a second quicker than Sykes.

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The Kawasaki rider ended the session third quickest, behind Davies and Guintoli. Both the French rider and Sykes only completed two laps each, as they both thought they had done enough to secure their position into the final Superpole session.

At first it looked like Melandri would be at risk of elimination but he was able to place himself just outside the top five fastest times. But with the former MotoGP rider catapulting himself out of the drop zone, it meant that Team Pedercini’s Mark Aitchison fell in to the elimination places and could not manage to clock a time to place him into Superpole three.

The Aussie rider was eliminated alongside his team-mate Federico Sandi, and Pata Honda’s stand in rider, Michel Fabrizio, who is riding in the place of the crocked Jonathan Rea. The Italian was never in contention of making it into the final Superpole outing.

ELIMINATED

Mark Aitchison

Federico Sandi

Michel Fabrizio

Superpole one

Tom Sykes 1’55.768

Marco Melandri 1’56.694

Sylvain Guintoli 1’56.908

Sykes left it till the chequered flag came out to set the quickest lap of 1’55.768, knocking Melandri down to a provisional second place start.

The BMW rider initially did one lap and then went back in the pits. Then with five minutes remaining came back out and on his third lap put in a 1’56.694.

But it was Guintoli was dominating the earlier part of the session. He seemed the one to beat in Superpole two, and was able to put pace, team-mate Laverty in the process.

In the beginning it looked like Melandri and Cluzel would be close to elimination, but they both clocked times that placed them safely into Superpole two.

The same could not be said for wild card rider’s CMS Racing’s Tolga Uprak and Sampiyon’s Yunus Ercelik. They were eliminated alongside Grillini Dentalmatic rider Vittorio Iannuzzo.

ELIMINATED

Tolga Uprak

Yunus Ercelik

Vittorio Iannuzzo

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