Ill Aruba Ducati man Davide Giugliano was the victor in this afternoon’s Superpole session, holding off the challenge of Tom Sykes by just 0.116s at Portimao despite suffering with a fever and a temperature of nearly 39°C
Giugliano put his Panigale on pole for tomorrow’s races with a superb 1’41.764 and Sykes had no answer but his 1’41.880 also puts him on the front row and in a great position to capitalise on his recent race-winning form at Donington, and a new strategy of doing race runs in free practice.
“I have a fever and for me it is difficult, I have a temperature of 38.7°C. The reason for changing the strategy is that simply the old one wasn’t working for them. So I was always able to a fast flying lap, I wasn’t so efficient over a race distance. Today, I was able to do a flying lap and also have consistency. I think with race one in the morning, we can have a good race, with the hot in the afternoon, not so easy but I speak with my team.”
Championship leader Jonathan Rea - who crashed at turn three on his second flying lap - was way down in eighth but with the margins so tight between the top eight, his 1’42.902 wasn’t a disaster lap it was just an extremely competitive session.
Behind Sykes and pole-setter Giugliano was the Italian’s team-mate Chaz Davies while Superpole one winner Alex Lowes produced a stunnning display for Suzuka to take fourth place.
Also in front of Rea and completing the second row were Leon Haslam and Matteo Baiocco while Sylvain Guintoli took seventh and will line up alongside Rea and ninth placed Jordi Torres.
Rounding out the shoot-out session were Ayrton Badovini, Leandro Mercado - who came through Superpole one with Lowes - and David Salom.
Michael Van Der Mark and Leon Camier narrowly missed out on the second session and will start tomorrow’s races from 13th and 14th on the grid, respectively.
