Yakhnich Yamaha’s Sam Lowes continued his run of good form and once again dominated qualifying, and will start the World Supersport race at Portimao from pole position tomorrow.
The Lincolnshire rider was on fire during the opening moments of the final qualifying session, and after thirty minutes found himself at the top of the time-sheets. But he was not able to stay there, as reigning champ, MAHI Racing’s Kenan Sofuoglu clocked a 1’45.319 time, overtaking Lowes on the time-sheets, making him the fastest rider out on the Portimao circuit.
Lowes returned to the garage but came out with ten minutes of the session remaining, to put in his fastest lap of 1’44.804, propelling him to the top of the time-sheets. No other rider was able to lap in the 1’44’s and Lowes proved unbeatable for Sofuoglu who was nearly a second slower than the Brit.
PTR Honda’s Sheridan Morais claims the final spot on the front row, and was only 0.2 seconds off the pace of the Kawasaki. MAHI Racing’s Fabien Foret just missed out on a front row start and takes up fourth place, as he could not match the lap times set by his Turkish team-mate.
Rivamoto’s Jack Kennedy had been putting in some impressive lap times during the earlier qualifying and free practice sessions, but this afternoon could only manage the seventh fastest time, with a 1’46.131 lap. At the start of the qualifiers he was up to third behind Sofuoglu, but will now find himself starting from the third row on Sunday.
The Dubliner was only 0.1 seconds off Pata Honda’s Michael Van der Mark’s lap time, meaning he narrowly misses out on a second row start. But Kennedy shares the third row with Kawasaki Intermoto rider Luca Scassa and Team Lorini’s Raffaele de Rosa.
ParkinGO MV rider Christian Iddon did improve on his race form from yesterday and with his fastest lap of 1’46.751 places himself sixteenth on the starting grid tomorrow. Fellow Brit DMC-Lorenzini’s Kev Coghlan could not find the pace on his bike to make it into the top twenty and finished the qualifying session in 23rd, with a 1’47.290 lap.
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