Reigning WorldSBK king Jonathan Rea has taken his second Aragon pole position in as many Saturdays, leading Michael Rinaldi by a quarter of a second but it was another nightmare for Chaz Davies, who will again start from row three.
Rea moved from a race tyre to the yellow-marked Pirelli qualifier early in the session, set a 1’48.767 and then sat back to see if anyone could beat the time - which is another new outright lap record - and it turned out no-one could with Rinaldi coming closest for his maiden front-row start.
This was Rea’s 26th career pole position and it took him to third equal in the all-time standings, alongside Troy Bayliss. Only Tom Sykes (50) and Troy Corser (43) have scored more.
Former team-mate Tom Sykes (BMW ) summoned up a fourth place in Superpole with the full HRC Honda duo of Alvaro Bautista and Leon Haslam in fifth and sixth places, offering up a real possibility for more Honda podiums after last weekend’s third for the little Spaniard.
The hard braking Yamaha star Toprak Razgatlioglu was seventh fastest, and will be joined on the third row of the grid by Davies and Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team) - the latter suffering from a bout of gastroenteritis that saw him miss the morning FP3 session.
Loris Baz (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha) completed the top ten riders in Superpole, just 0.650 seconds behind Rea’s new track best.
Federico Caricasulo put his GRT Yamaha in 11th place, one ahead of Michael van der Mark who spent half the cooling-down lap involved in handbags with Sylvain Barrier who he believed had held him up on his last, fast lap.
Max Schieb headed Garrett Gerloff for 14th with Xavi Fores putting the Puccetti Kawasaki in 15th with Eugene Laverty and Marco Meandri in 17th.
