Eugene Laverty finally showed what he and the Milwaukee Aprilia are capable of at the Portimao WorldSBK round by blitzing the outright lap record on the way to pole position in Portugal.
The Monaco resident set a 1’40.705 to go six-tenths under Tom Sykes’ record which was enough to beat countryman and reigning champion Jonathan Rea by 0.060s with Aruba Ducati’s Marco Melandri in third.
It is Laverty's third career Superpole and the first for his Milwaukee Aprilia team. It was the also first Aprilia RSV4 pole position since Leon Haslam took the top spot at Magny-Cours in 2015.
Team-mate Lorenzo Savadori placed fourth, having come through Superpole 1. Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha) proved to be top R1 rider pre-race in fifth, after team-mate Alex Lowes fell late in the SP2 session and was 12th as a result.
A late scrabble from Tom Sykes (KRT) finally took him to sixth place and the outside of the second row.
Xavi Fores (Barni Ducati) placed seventh with SP1 runner Loris Baz (Althea BMW) an eventual eighth. Day one strong competitor Jordi Torres (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) was ninth on a slightly cooler second day of action at Portimao compared to Friday.
Privateer Kawasaki rider Toprak Razgatlioglu (Puccetti Kawasaki) finished off the top ten, with part-time WorldSBK competitor Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba Ducati Junior) 11th.
Leon Camier (Red Bull Honda) could not get out of SP1 and finished one place from SP2 in 13th overall.
Chaz Davies (Aruba Ducati) had two full tries at qualifying into Superpole 2 but missed out on the front row by losing pace in two sectors in each attempt. He will line up for race one on 14th place on the grid.
Jake Gagne (Red Bull Honda) was 15th of the 20 runners and PJ Jacobsen (Triple M Honda) 18th.
