BMW’s Eugene Laverty has taken a surprise WorldSBK pole position at Magny-Cours this morning with team-mate Tom Sykes directly behind him and world champion Jonathan Rea in third place.
Laverty set a 1’48.644 on his final lap which pushed Sykes off top spot and an error from Rea on his penultimate flyer meant he wasn’t properly setup for the last effort and he finished two-tenths in arrears.
Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team) was pushed on to row two by his team-mate, into fourth place. The great recent form shown by Texan rookie Garrett Gerloff (GRT Yamaha) saw him fifth, and the final place on row two went to the works 2020 R1 of Michael van der Mark.
Michael Rinaldi (Team GoEleven Ducati) was seventh, Loris Baz (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha) eighth, which he will be disappointed with given his free practice form, and Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) ninth.
The only man who can realistically stop Rea being champion for the sixth time in succession, Scott Redding was tenth in Superpole, leading to a start from the fourth row of the grid for the first two races at Magny-Cours.
Top Honda rider was Leon Haslam (HRC Honda), 11th and 1.7s off the pace. It was much worse news for his team-mate Alvaro Bautista, however, as he ended in 17th and some three seconds off the pace - an improvement on yesterday.
Federico Caricasulo took his GRT bike to 12th while Toprak Razgatlioglu, who seemed to have got over his fear of the rain yesterday, ended up in 13th with Xavi Fores and Tati Mercado completing the top 15.
