Puccetti Kawasaki’s Kenan Sofuoglu will start the World Supersport race at Phillip Island from pole position after finishing on top in this morning’s Superpole session in Australia.
Sofuoglu was impressive on the Kawasaki as he eased to a commanding 1’33.142 that the rest of the field struggled to come close to, with PJ Jacobsen taking the Ten Kate Honda into second in the final moments of qualifying.
Randy Krummenacher, also racing on the Puccetti Kawasaki machine managed to take the lead halfway through the inaugural World Supersport Superpole but Sofuoglu took little time to regain his position and held on comfortably to start tomorrow’s race in top spot.
Federico Caricasulo took fourth after coming through the minefield that was Superpole 1, with Lorenzo Zanetti and Alex Baldolini joining him on row two.
Towards the end of the session Jules Cluzel pushed his MV Agusta just a little too hard and the Frenchman slid off into the gravel, though he was lucky not to high-side the machine.
He failed to recover the bike properly in time to make any significant inroads on his initial times and he could only muster eighth place behind Superpole 1 victor Christian Gamarino, and just ahead of British duo Kyle Ryde and Kyle Smith.
Elsewhere, Britons Luke Stapleford and Gino Rea finished Superpole 1 in fifth and eighth respectively while Stefan Hill was down in 16th, leaving that trio with plenty of work to do ahead of tomorrow’s race.